


make a little birdhouse in your soul

by Shorty



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pushing Daisies Fusion, F/M, Gen, M/M, and angus is emerson, but taako runs the diner, julia is chuck, magnus is the ned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:47:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shorty/pseuds/Shorty
Summary: Magnus Burnsides can bring people back from the dead. Not for long, at least not without consequences, but that doesn't stop him from bringing back Julia Burnsides when he sees her dead in a coffin after decades.Turns out, bringing people back for good is kind of a slippery slope.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Julia Burnsides/Magnus Burnsides, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), MOSTLY GEN FIC but the following pairings will appear at times:
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I've been writing since MARCH 2017. IT IS FINALLY DONE!!!
> 
> I'll be posting the chapters sporadically, bc I have to edit them a bit (the style changes greatly from the start of the fic to the end, because its been over three years since the beginning was written).
> 
> Would a pushing daisies fic make more sense with Taako/Kravitz? Maybe, but I have a reason that will be revealed down the road as for why its not them!  
> Would a pushing daisies fic make more sense for Lup/Barry? Definitely, but when I came up w/ the concept lup wasn't confirmed.  
> Also, come on, we all want Julia back.
> 
> This first chapter is just an epilogue that steals straight from the beginning of pushing daisies, and tbh i havent edited it in a few years, so please bear thru it and read the real first chapter!

At this very moment in the town of Raven's Roost, young Magnus Burnsides was fifteen years, twenty-seven weeks, six days and three minutes old. His goldfish, Stephen, was eight years, twenty-nine weeks, two days and twelve minutes old. And not a minute older. Despite having lived in near perfect conditions after having been bought by Magnus just shy of eight years earlier, he was quite old for a fish. 

This was the moment young Magnus realized he wasn’t like the other children: nor was he like anyone else, for that matter. Young Magnus could touch dead things and bring them back to life. Steven lay in his bowl, and Magnus went to do what most of popular culture had told him was the thing to do with dead fish. Only, as his hands went to scoop up the fish, Stephen started; most certainly dead before, but now alive, and for just a second, his scales glowing yellow.

This touch was a gift given to him, but not by anyone or for any purpose he knew. There was no box, no instructions, no manufacturer’s warranty: it just was. The terms of use weren’t immediately clear, nor were they of immediate concern: young Magnus was in love. Her name was Julia Waxmen. Magnus had met her over the summer, when her father Steven had hired Magnus to work at his carpentry shop Tong. It had taken Magnus five months to ask Julia out on a date, but once he had finally mustered up the courage, she had said yes. Because at this very moment, she was fifteen years, forty-two weeks, three hours and two minutes old, and very much in love with Magnus Burnsides.

Long after their date was over, young Magnus remained under Julia’s spell. Until, as he sat at the kitchen table working on homework while his foster mother cooked dinner, a blood vessel in his foster mother’s brain burst, killing her instantly. Magnus had only been fostered by this woman for less than a year, but he already liked her more than he had the past seven foster parents he had stayed with. And now, she lay on the floor, just as dead as Stephen had been. Not knowing if what had happened with his fish was true, or if it would work again, Magnus slowly reached his hand and touched her, and - 

Her skin glew yellow for a second, and then her eyes opened. “Must’ve slipped – clumsy.” She said, getting off the floor and dusting off her pants. She smiled over at Magnus, who had bolted back as soon as her eyes had opened, and then started back at work on the mashed potatoes she had been making.

But, young Magnus’s random gift that was, came with a caveat or two. It was a gift that not only gave – it took. Young Magnus discovered he could only bring the dead back to life for one minute without consequence; any longer, and someone else had to die. 

He learned this because, in the grand universal scheme of things, young Magnus had traded his mother’s life for the woman’s next door - young, and dead, with no reason to be.

But he hadn’t learned that yet, wouldn’t put the clues together for ages, not until he gathered up dead bugs and tested on them later in life. No, this wasn’t the caveat to his gift that he learned tonight.

See, there was one more thing about touching dead things that young Magnus didn’t know; and he learned it in the most unfortunate way. First touch: life. Second touch: dead again, forever. Only thirty-three minutes after she had been brought back to life, Magnus’ foster mother reached out to ruffle his hair, before crumpling to the floor, dead. No matter how many times Magnus tried to bring her back.

The funeral held was small. They didn’t know many people in town, and his mother didn’t have much family of her own, so it was just co-workers, Magnus, and the Waxmen’s.

Julia’s father would have offered to take young Magnus into his home, but seconds after the funeral child services would hustle him off to a group home, never to be seen so young again in Raven’s Roost. 

At his foster mother’s funeral, dizzy with grief, young Magnus would have his last kiss with young Julia. 

After leaving Magnus became obsessed with carpentry. It’s 17 years, 34 weeks, 1 day and 59 minutes later, heretofore known as "Now." Young Magnus has become The Carpenter.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing Julia Waxmen says upon being brought back to the land of the living is: “Magnus Burnsides? Holy shit, is that really you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't actually edit this chapter bc I edited a few months ago, so if anything is bad please blame past me and not present me.

The thing about Magnus’ life now was: it was better. Like, way fucking better. His life was basically a rollercoaster; there was the down of his childhood, the up of Raven’s Roost, the down of killing his favorite foster parent and an innocent bystander, and the continued plunge of his last three years of foster homes and his life for a little (long) bit after that. 

But Magnus-in-his-thirties has hit a new high, where he was a super badass detective who sometimes (always, actually because that was sort of his detective-schtick) woke the dead to help solve their murders, alongside his friends. His friends, who included a chef who could also do magic-y shit (not quite as badass as Magnus’ own magic, but much more showman-y, which fit Taako way better anyway), a dude who used to be a priest but now fucked plants professionally (“I run a greenhouse” Merle had corrected the first time, lovingly stroking the leaf of a peace lily) while also trying to get on better terms with his estranged kids, and speaking of kids, a ten year old who’d been adopted by Taako and also did 99% of the work for the detective agency (the other 1% was the whole ‘bringing the dead back to life’ thing).

Also, he gets to run a carpentry shop (lovingly named Hammer and Tong in what he hopes wasn’t copyright infringement) situated right in between Taako’s cafe and Merle’s florist place, and actually rollercoaster’s were pretty fricking awesome and the drop was the best part so maybe the analogy should be changed so the good shit was the ‘down’ part of the coaster and the bad shit was the agonizing nerve-wracking way-too-goddamn-long crawl up the hill.

Or maybe people just said the whole rollercoaster thing because it pulled up a nice image of constant ups and downs.

Anyway, as Magnus walks into LuLu’s for lunch (“Dude, your cafe has like the most cliche kitschy name possible!” Magnus had joked, which was when he learned even more about Taako’s tragic backstory, namely the whole ‘my sister and friend/her-boyfriend have been missing for four years’ thing) he was feeling pretty good.

“Little dude’s waiting in the booth to talk about a new case.” Taako says, jabbing his thumb towards Angus McDonald, boy detective, who’s currently sitting in a booth swinging his legs while eating a sandwich. “Give Ren your lunch order while I go grab Merle.”

Magnus does, and then goes over to sit with Angus, who tells him all about the soccer team he’d recently joined at his high school. 

After a few minutes, Taako comes over with Merle, scooching Angus over in the booth with a push, just as Ren comes up with Magnus’ sandwich.

“Aw, I don’t get food.” Merle whines as she walks away.

“Nope.” Taako says, nodding to Angus, who finishes taking his bite and then angles himself towards everyone.

“Alright, sirs, I got a call from a woman who says her neighbors house fire was caused by arson.” Angus pulls a piece of paper out of his ever present satchel. “She said apparently there’s a guy who wants to develop the land a state over, about two hours away, in Raven’s Roost, and her neighbor refused to sell, so-”

“Did you say-” Magnus croaks, swallowing hard. “Did you say Raven’s Roost? Whose house burned down? Who died?”

“Um,” Angus says, looking diligently at his notes and reciting, “a Mr. Stephen Waxmen and his daughter Julia died in the fire that burnt down their house, both of smoke inhalation once they’d already left.”

Magnus’ throat goes dry. “Stephen and Julia are dead?”

Taako leans towards Magnus, sporting one of his rare genuine looks. “Did you know them?”

“I. Um. I worked for Stephen at his - he had a carpentry shop called _Tong_ , that’s why my store is - we joked I was the hammer -” Magnus buries his face in his hands. “Jules and I dated, we technically never even broke up, I left when my - when my foster mom, you know.” He waves his hand, trying to clear away the - heaviness? It doesn’t work.

Angus clears his throat. “Um, well, sir. Ms. Waxmen is supposed to be buried today - her father was buried yesterday, so if we want to utilize your ability we should probably go.”

“Yeah.” Magnus says, lifting his head and wiping at the tears on his face. “Yeah, I owe it to them to find out who burnt their house down. Let’s go.”

…

The main issue with their operation, in Magnus’ opinion, isn’t the fact that it’s headed by a ten year old, because Angus is amazing, even if none of them are willing to admit it to his face. It’s the fact that Magnus is the only one who drives, ever. (Merle claims he’s too old, Taako claims he’s too gay - despite the fact that Magnus has _seen him drive_ \- and Angus is, well, again, ten years old). The issue with this is usually that Magnus never gets to goof around on the road with them because he has excellent fucking vehicle proficiency and an image to live up to. In this unique case, the issue is that he keeps thinking about his mentor and his first girlfriend being dead.

Major bummer, and probably not a great thing to think about when also traveling slightly above the speed limit to make sure you don’t have to try and exhume said dead girlfriends body.

They actually do end up making it there in time, despite their late start. In fact, they make it there in plenty of time; the place doesn’t even open up for the funeral for another forty minutes.

“Okay, same plan as always.” Taako says, hopping out of the car. “Break in, fuck shit up.”

Magnus and Merle do their standard fist pump, even if Magnus’ is pretty half hearted and ‘break in, fuck shit up’ rarely works long term.

They don’t actually break in - the funeral director is apparently pretty lax with who gets to see dead bodies as long as they hand over a fifty, which was in this case fairly fucking great.

“Okay, so he’s totally ripping off these dead people.” Taako says as soon as they’re five feet from the dude. “Watch has ‘PB’ engraved on it, and costs way more than that dude makes in a year, and he has a handkerchief with ‘AL’ on it. Who the _fuck_ steals a handkerchief.”

“You stole my boots off of-” Magnus starts, right before Taako’s hand is squashing his mouth, eyes darting to an oblivious Merle.

“Shut up.” Taako hisses, “That was once and those are very nice boots. No one even sees feet in a coffin.”

Magnus rolls his eyes. “I think Jules - the body is in there. You guys make sure the skeeze doesn’t follow me in?”

Taako pulls his hand back from where it had been hovering near Magnus’ shoulder, gives Magnus a lazy thumbs up as the latter slips into the room, and turns back to Angus, Merle, and the skeeze.

The room is fairly large - it's the reviewing room, the coffin already presented creepily at the edge of the room - and it takes him a moment before he really can tell who it is in the coffin.

Seeing her, seeing Julia again, in a coffin, is even less pleasant that Magnus would have imagined. She looks exactly like Magnus would have guessed she would, if he’d thought about it. Her hair was longer, her skin darker, her face had more lines, but. She’s not just another dead person who probably would like their death avenged but not enough to like, come back as a ghost. She’s Julia. 

He can’t do it. He stands in there for at least five minutes, staring at her, but he can’t touch her only to have her go back to being dead in just a minute.

He goes back, opens up the door, and hisses, “ _Taako_. Is stealing from dead people a big enough crime to be punished with death?”

“Hopefully not.” Taako says as he walks over to Magnus, eyeing Mag’s boots and smirking, “But he did murder a bunch of old people, convince their families to bury them is _supes_ expensive shit, and then steal said expensive shit right off of their cold dead bodies.”

“How do you know that?”

Taako preens. “Angus figured it out. He’s very smart.”

“Cool, dope, I’m gonna kill this guy and bring Jules back for good.”

“I’m assuming she’s not in there right now ticking down?”

Magnus shakes his head, “I haven’t brought her back yet, you Merle and Angus leave and drive until I text you, I’ll go wake her up, and then you guys can come back when the coast is clear?”

Taako nods and starts speed walking back towards the funeral director, still being distracted by Merle and Angus, and grabs onto their elbows and wheeling them out of the building; Magnus closes the door, grabs a chair, and jams it under the handle. 

Then he waits. He’s not sure how long it’ll take Taako, Merle, and Angus to get in the car and out of the death radius, but he decides better safe than sorry. Sure, he almost touches Julia a few times - he’s an antsy dude, and he generally likes to act, not think, but it is his friends' lives at stake, so.

After like, two minutes, the door handle starts to jiggle, and the skeeze starts to yell, so that’s when Magnus touches Julia for the first time in seventeen years.

The first thing Julia Waxmen says upon being brought back to the land of the living is: “Magnus Burnsides? Holy shit, is that really you!” She throws her arms out for what looks like it’s going to be a pretty sweet hug.

“Yeah, hi!” Magnus says, jumping back. “Don’t touch me.”

Julia smiles - it’s the same smile Magnus knows, just with a few more laugh lines. “Darn, I really wanted to kiss you.”

“Haha, well, see you’re-”

“Dead?” Her smile slips. “Yeah, I kinda remember that. Are you dead too?”

“No, I um.” Magnus sighs. “I brought you back to life? Long story, I’ll explain later, but essentially DO NOT touch me because if you do you will be dead again but this time, like, for good.”

Julia nods, and starts to swing her legs out of the coffin. “Right, right, this is insane. Also the no touching thing is kinda a bummer cause I feel like bringing someone back from the dead deserves a hug or something. Anyway, I’m alive for good? Let’s go then, before that person screaming out there tries to bury me.”

Magnus makes a face. “See, we kinda have to wait-” a check to his bringing-people-back-for-only-a-minute stopwatch “twenty more seconds for that guy to die? Cause to bring you back someone has to die, a life for a life type thing, but don’t worry he’s a murderer!”

Julia raises a single eyebrow - damn, that’s impressive, she couldn’t do that before - and says, “Really a murderer or you want to bring me back to life without a guilt trip murderer?”

“Really a murderer, my ten year old boss figured it out-” the handle stops jiggling, and there’s a thump from the other side of the door.

“Right, let’s go.” Magnus says, sending a quick ‘turn around’ text to Angus and Taako (Merle never checks his phone) and removing the chair from under the handle.

They step over the dead funeral director, which isn’t great because Magnus had decided to wear shorts today and he really doesn’t want to graze the dude, and then they go sit on the steps of the funeral home, waiting for their ride (driven by Taako, more proof Magnus shouldn’t always have to drive).

And for the first time in nearly two decades, Magnus is in love.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia nods. “And you were investigating my death?”
> 
> “Yeah, a neighbor thinks it was arson.”
> 
> “It was, shit, it must have been. Fucking Governor Kalen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm...not good at plots? Also I think this is the last chapter where this fic really feels pushing daisies inspired. Like the concept continues but this is the last one that I get pd vibes from when I reread.

The car ride back to their places-of-business-slash-their-apartments-right above-said-places-of-business is awkward. Taako drives, for once, seeming to recognize that Magnus wants to sit with Julia, even if it means Angus is sitting in between them so they aren’t touching. Things are quiet. There’s general introductions, and Merle decides to fill the silence by putting in a Kenny Chesney CD he apparently travels with and singing loudly along with the songs while Taako threatens to murder him, but the elephant in the room - car - is huge; Julia was dead, now she isn’t, and Magnus has to tell her how that came to be while also solving her murder.

They also pass by some Raven’s Roost residents presumably headed to Julia’s funeral, which means Jules - who is by no means a small woman at an inch taller than Magnus - has to sink into her seat to avoid a potential sighting.

So yeah. Awkward.

They get back to the building, and Taako pulls Angus with him towards Lulu’s, claiming he needs to start prepping for the dinner rush and that Angus still has homework to finish; Magnus knows for a fact the first is true but the second is a lie.

Merle hangs around for a minute, and Magnus is pretty sure he’s gonna have to make him leave, but then he just pats Magnus’ back, gives him a sympathetic look, and heads towards his shop.

Magnus rubs the back of his neck awkwardly; now that he’s alone, he doesn’t know what to do. “My store is closed right now, so we can go up to my apartment and I can...explain? Some shit?”

Julia laughs, awkward and nervous and a bit sad, and nods. “That would be nice. Lead the way.”

They go up Magnus’ apartment, which is fairly nice but not really as clean as one would hope their apartment would be when inviting up their ex-girlfriend who they’re probably (definitely) still in love with after not having seen her in fifteen years.

And also after bringing her back from the dead.

Whatever.

He gives her a quick tour, shows her his room, where she’ll be staying until he can get a mattress for the extra room. They finish the tour in the living room/kitchen area. “Do you want anything to drink, or-”

Julia flops down onto his couch and sighs. “Just the story, please.”

Magnus sits in the chair across from her. “Right. So. Long story short: when I was fifteen my goldfish Stephen died and then I touched him and he came back to life - that’s him over there-” Magnus waves towards where Stephen’s tank is, “but I was like, oh he must not have really been dead! Then my foster mom died, and I touched her, and she came back, and then it turns out the next door neighbor died because if I don’t re-dead someone within a minute someone within a thirty foot radius will also die, unless there’s no one in that radius and then it keeps expanding, but that’s not really important right now? Later my mom touched me, and then she re-deaded, because if I touch someone again they die for good. So as long as we never touch we’re good!”

Magnus breathes in deep, out of breath from his rapid fire words but still not done, and then says: “You met Taako, Angus, and Merle, we run a kind of detective agency? Taako can turn shit into other shit, like I mean for real he’s got magic powers of some sort it’s actually way cooler than mine because I just wake up dead people which is sort of macabre if you think about it too hard, and he got framed for murder, so that’s how we met, and then Angus was investigating this murder the three of us were looking into and now Taako’s working on adopting him and now we technically work for him I guess? He’s insanely smart. They’re all pretty cool, but this is the first time we’ve ever kept someone alive for good so this is probably a little weird for everyone involved which is why everyone but Merle was sort of quiet on the drive back.”

Julia nods. “And you were investigating my death?”

“Yeah, a neighbor thinks it was arson.”

“It was, shit, it must have been. Fucking Governor Kalen.” Julia spits, and Magnus hasn’t ever seen Julia this mad, but when he thinks about it - he knew her for half a year, and death-by-arson is probably something you get fairly pissed over.

“Who? Why do you think it was him?”

Julia leans forward, head in hands, racking in a ragged breath. She sits back up. “He’s- well, he’s the Governor, and he used to own this huge development company, and even though he legally can’t own the company anymore his son does, so his family is still pocketing all of the money. He’s been using his sway as governor to get people to sell or be forced to sell their valuable land, but when he got to Raven’s Roost dad and I refused. It _has_ to be him.”

“Angus said your neighbor thought it was something to do with land development, but shit, a governor?” Magnus wants nothing more than to go over and comfort Julia, but. Well. Touch of death and all.

“Tomorrow.” Magnus says, standing up, feeling useless sitting down but not knowing what he can do. “Tomorrow we’ll regroup with the others and go after him. But, well. Even if you’re not tired you should probably rest tonight. And I kind of have to go finish some chairs a couple ordered.” He finishes sheepishly.

“You’re still a carpenter?” Julia asks, lips quirking. 

Magnus blushes. “Shit, I forgot - I named my shop Hammer and Tong? And I never okayed it with your dad, I promise I wasn't trying for like, copyright infringement it's just the only name that seemed right-”

“No,” Julia laughs, and it’s still sad but at least it’s happening, “he’ll - he would have loved that. Hope you didn’t lose your touch though, he can’t have his brand attached to a mediocre shop.”

“Do you want to come help?” Magnus asks, gesturing towards the door. “I know I said rest, but you were always better than me at making chairs, so…”

Julia smiles, and nods, and stands up to follow him down to his shop.

The shop front is small - just enough room to store his smaller touristy trinkets and a portfolio of his work - but the backroom is giant, with enough room to cut and shape the wood. Julia smiles, takes a deep breath.

“It’s no Raven’s Roost.” She says and she runs her hand over. 

“Yeah, well, there’s not as much space or nice weather here. But it’s pretty okay.” 

Julia nods. “More than okay. What’s your order?”

Magnus describes it to her, and she starts to work, methodically prepping wood and shaping the chairs. 

“So, what have you been up to for the last fifteen or odd years?” Julia asks after a while.

“I went to another foster home. It was pretty okay - I know not all of them are great, but the family was fairly nice. Not super touchy feely, but they were helping a lot of kids out so I can’t fault them. After that, I did odd jobs here and there. Tried to help people with my gift when I could - though it did cost them something, if they could pay. Saved up enough money to buy myself this place, met my friends, and you’re about caught up. What about you?”

“Mostly just stayed with my dad at Raven’s Roost.” Julia frowns. “I- it doesn’t sound like much, I know. But I was happy.”

A long silence stretches out between them. “Don’t take this in a weird way,” Magnus says, “but I’d really like to be able to touch you.”

Julia laughs. Magnus had always loved Julia’s laugh; it was loud, almost a guffaw. It couldn’t help but make you feel happy. “I’d like to touch you too, Burnsides.”

She picks up one of the work gloves, puts it on, and tucks her long sleeved shirt into it. Then she stands up, walks over to where Magnus is sitting, and winds her covered hand through his.

It’s not the same, but he can feel her hand, warm and alive, through the rough fabric. He squeezes it tighter.

…

Magnus doesn’t sleep well that night - he can hear from the living room that Jules doesn’t either, but he. Well. She probably needs time by herself after everything.

He gets out of bed earlier than he normally would, and mills around his apartment doing nothing. Picks up a flyer from his mail pile that fell on the floor, works on a smaller carving he brought upstairs, cleans his fucking kitchen, which he never uses because even though Taako insists he has a very large tab at LuLu’s he hasn’t paid for food there in at least a year, so his kitchen isn’t even that dirty. Yes, he’s that bored.

Julia gets up, and LuLu’s is open, and it’s a Sunday so Angus doesn’t have school, so they head down for breakfast, banging on Merle’s door as they pass to wake him up.

They get down to the restaurant and, seeing him in a booth, sit by Angus, eating his eggs benedict while reviewing what Magnus can only assume is information on the arson.

Joaquin comes over with three plates of food - pancakes for Magnus, corned beef hash for Merle, and a smorgasboard for Julia. “Taako says he’ll be over in a minute, he’s got a few more orders and pastries to finish before he can leave.”

Julia takes a bite of the crepe on her plate, and, well. In books and stuff people are always described as moaning like they’re having sex when they eat good food, which Julia does not. She does make a noise of delight, however, and says, “This is delicious. I know you said that your friend was a chef, but this is seriously the best food I’ve ever eaten, and I hate breakfast food.” She pauses, takes another bite. “Or is food just especially good after you come back from the dead?”

Angus swallows the last bite of his food. “Magnus has never brought anyone back long enough for them to eat, but Ta- Dad is a really good chef! He used to have the most popular cooking show in all of Faerun, but then he was accused of murder; now that his name was cleared people come from all over to eat here!”

Julia chuckles, takes another bite. 

“Did you get the flyer?” Merle asks.

“What flyer?”

“The one about the new landlords holding a meeting so they can meet everyone who lives in the apartments or leases storefronts?” Merle says, seeming happy he knows something Magnus doesn’t.

“Wow, Merle, are you bragging about reading a flyer?” Taako says, sliding into the booth with his own plate of food.

“I saw a flyer on the floor this morning, but I just assumed my mail pile had fallen. What time is the meeting?” Magnus asks, glancing over at Julia. “I don’t want it to get in the way of the investigation.”

“Tomorrow at 8pm.” Taako says, and then notices everyone’s eyes on him and shrugs. “What? It was in the cafe’s mailbox.”

Taako turns to Angus. “Anyway, Angus, you said you had some more information on the fire?”

Angus nods. “Magnus texted me last night to let me know Ms. Julia said it was probably Governor Kalen who started the fire, so I started to look into that some more. It looks like he was planning on putting in a golf course for a large country club looking to expand into the area. The deal is reported to be pretty big, and the development company hasn’t been doing as well recently so they really need the deal to stay afloat. I called Ms. Hurley,” it was honestly amazing that Hurley had kept her position at the police department, but her boss was doing something a lot worse than dating an illegal street racer, so that probably looked way worse in comparison; plus, Magnus wasn’t exactly going to complain, “and apparently there wasn’t much found in remains of the house other than proof it was started with an accelerant, so I think instead of investigating there we should probably go to the development companies headquarters and see if we can find anything that proves he’s been making these threats.”

“We can just walk into a development company?” Merle asks, still working on his breakfast despite everyone else being done.

“Usual plan?” Taako asks, and Angus shakes his head.

“Actually,” Angus smiles. “We can just walk in. They’re having a black tie fundraising event for the Governor’s second term with some of their biggest clients - which includes the country club, since they just signed the deal yesterday. Apparently once Ms. Julia and her dad, um, after the fire, everyone who was holding out with you and your father finally caved once they heard the house fire was arson. So all we need is for dad to transmute us some fancy clothes and the entrance badges, which look like-” Angus pulls out his phone and taps it a few times, before showing an Instagram photo on someone in really expensive clothes holding a badge and posing, “this.”

“So Kalen is going to be there.” Julia asks, and Angus nods.

“Ok.” she says, her smile terrifying and she cracks her knuckles. “Let’s go kick some ass.”


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They…don’t actually go kick some ass. Not immediately, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Julia POV! This chapter was originally from Magnus' POV but then I realized later chapter needed to be from Taako's POV so I rewrote this one so POV switches wouldn't seem weird... So if the ABC's thing seems out of place, know I write it 3 years ago from Magnus' POV and it delighted my younger self so much I couldn't bear to remove it, even with the POV switch.
> 
> ALSO the same day I posted the first 3 chapters of this fic I watch little shop or horrors for the first time and was utterly delighted to see aunt vivian!

They…don’t actually go kick some ass. Not immediately, anyway - the event doesn’t start until five, and Taako, Merle, and Magnus all have shops to run. Julia kicks around in Magnus’ apartment for a bit - watches some Netflix, snoops around (but only a little). Nothing really gets rid of her nerves, but hey, here’s to trying.

This whole thing is. Well. Julia hadn’t thought of Magnus as more than a passing thought for over a decade. When she’d seen him again, she would swear she felt sparks. Hell, she probably did - the magic coursing through her, or whatever.

She hasn’t taken time to mourn - the loss of her father, of her previous life, even the thought of her own death. That's the nice thing about a revenge trip, isn’t it? The procrastinating from mourning? She spends the last few hours of her day thinking morose thoughts like that before Magnus comes up to his apartment to collect her.

Taako leaves two of his employees (Joaquin and Ren? Julia’s pretty sure that were their names) in charge of his place at 2:30, and Magnus shuts his shop down (he explains to her that he mostly gets online orders or appointments anyway), and Merle leaves his shop in the hands of his twelve year old daughter, which is an incredibly shitty idea but from what Julia can figure, Merle’s an incredibly shitty dad, and his daughter is very smart.

They meet up at Taako and Angus’ apartment, where Taako’s already got their outfits and badges ready, and _then_ they head out to kick some ass.

The car ride is tense. Julia was still learning the usual groove of things, but she can tell everyone was serious, dour, and unused to it. She almost has to ask Magnus to pull over at one point - her nerves have started to morph into nausea. She goes to do it, but something about Magnus Burnsides puts her at ease, even all these years later. The churning in her gut dies down.

Angus goes over the plan on the way to the party - Taako and Merle cause a distraction, Angus, Julia and Magnus search Kalen’s son's office. Easy enough.

It doesn't take long to get there, thank god, and they manage to get into the event without much issue.

The inside of the building has that sleek, modern look that all big businesses seem to find the height of style, or maybe think gives off the look of innovation, for all the good that does for a development company. It’s packed - people in dresses and tuxes so fancy that the clothes Taako made them looks practically cheap.

There’s a makeshift stage at the far end, with elevators opposite. Julis scans the crowd for Kalen and his son, both of whom she’d met, but as far as she can tell neither man is here yet.

“Ok, so.” Taako says. “Looks like the elevator needs an ID badge to get in - I’ll go scout around and either steal one or get a close enough look I can make one. Julia, your disguise is awesome but you should still probably stay under the radar. The rest of you, have fun till I get back, and then we’ll start Angus’ plan.”

They all nod, and, well. They head to the buffet. Together. En masse. Julia almost giggles at the awkward way the two men scoot as she and Angus follow along.

After about five minutes of standing awkwardly eating finger foods, Julia sees him, drifting towards the stage. She elbows Merle and points towards the stage, hands flapping with nerves and excitement. “That’s him.”

“Where?!?” Merle yells, and Magnus elbows him sharply while Angus shushes him.

“By the fucking stage, old man.” Magnus hisses.

“No need to get mean about it.” Merle grumbles, standing up on the tips of his toes to get a better look.

Governor Kalen looks...normal. Julia doesn’t know what she was expecting. Maybe a man wracked with guilt over the murder of an innocent man and his (admittadly, now no longer dead) daughter.

Julia is internally fuming so hard that Magnus must sense it. He takes a step away from her - for a second she wonders why before remembering her re-life's rules - and whispers. “Don’t do anything.”

“I know.” Julia says. “I’m not a child. Besides that, I’m not getting brought back from the dead just to go to jail for the rest of my un-life for murder. But I really hate that bastard.”

“Noted. And agreed.” Merle says, glaring slightly in Kalens direction.

Taako pops up beside them - not literally - dangling a badge from his hand. “Guess what I just stole!” he sings, and hands the badge to Angus.

“Are you two ready to do the distraction? Both Kalen and his son are down here, so now would be a good time to go.” Julia says, and Taako and Merle nod, and head off into the crowd.

Julia glances back at Taako and Merle only once they get to the abandoned elevator, Angus surreptitiously holding the badge up to the scanner to call down the elevator.

They’re about five feet from the stage when Merle drops to the floor, clutching his heart with a loud and fake groan. “Oh no! Oh god!” Taako yells, loudly and fakely, “My old, old, old, dad is having a heart attack! He’s so old! I don’t think he’ll live through this one!” As he yells, he gestures widely and on the stage a glass of water disappears from the podium and - yup. It’s on fire.

Despite everything, Julia thinks she might like her new life.

…

It’s a quick but nerve racking trip up to the top floor, which is of course where Kalen’s son's office is located.

The place is modern and sparsely decorated, and the dude literally has three - three! - computers on his desk. The computers are all sleek Apple computers, and it takes Angus five minutes to hack into the desktop (seriously, where did they find this kid?), which is when they learn it's connected to the two laptops and they’re in all three.

Angus starts typing rapidly on the computer and Julia starts rummaging through a file cabinet - the desk, of course, doesn’t have any drawers - and Magnus heads out to guard the door.

Five minutes later, she hears “Guys, hurry up!” from Magnus, and the ding of the elevator doors. And then she hears what is almost a cartoon sounding punch sound, and Magnus’ thundering steps as he runs through the door. “Okay, so, a dude just came up to the elevator and I punched him. He’s knocked out but I don’t know for how long I probably shouldn’t have just left him there but I’m strong and I punched him full strength. Anyway! Just a fun status update! Hurry up!”

Julia says nothing, because Governor Kalen walks up behind Magnus at that very moment.

Magnus whirls around when he finished his statement and runs right into the man, which is enough to knock Magnus to the ground, giving Kalen perfect line of site to Julia. Who, oh yeah, he totally thinks should be dead right now.

Julia catches Magnus open up his camera and hit record out of the corner of her eyes (she’s previously been told that Magnus had two skills when it came to detective-ing: raising the dead, and the ABC. The ABCs, of course, stood for **A** -lways **B** -e **C** -recording, which had led to them making stupid acronyms for everything they could see - seriously, the serotonin release that came just from being near Magnus was massive).

“What’s wrong Kalen?” Julia says, “You look like you’re seeing a ghost.” She feels silly saying it, but Kalen stumbles back through the hall. It gives her a sick pleasure to see him trip over his own feet.

He looks like he’s seen a ghost. “You - you can’t be here.”

“Why not?” Julia snarls, stepping menacingly towards Kalen. “Because you killed me?”

“ _How_ are you alive. I saw the coroner's report myself!”

“Checking to make sure the job was done right?” Julia asks, pauses, and then continues. “What, you can tell me. I’m dead, after all.”

“I-” Kalen stops, gathers himself. “This is clearly a trick. You’re a double, or-”

“No.” Julia says, standing just a few inches from Kalen, towering over him. “I’m Julia Waxmen. The same Julia Waxmen who you threatened, for fucking _land_ , the same Julia Waxmen who turned you down, the same Julia Waxmen whose home you _burned down_ so you could build a goddamn golf course!”

Kalen is shaking, sobbing, “Please, I’m sorry, please-”

Julia grabs at his shirt, heaves him so he is only centimeters away from her face. “So you admit it. You admit you tried to blackmail me, admit you _killed _me, _and_ my father, and probably countless others?”__

__“Yes, please stop, I’m sorry, I did it-” Julia’s grip on his shirt tightens, and he stumbles back, arms begging._ _

__“Fuck you.” Julia spits, and then she punches him._ _

__Kalen crumples to the ground, prone._ _

__“Shit.” Julia breathes out, shaking out her fist. Punching hurt like a motherfucker. “You get that, Maggie?”_ _

__

__“I’ve been recording!” Magnus says, pressing stop on his phone and waving it in the air._ _

__“I also found some emails between Kalen and his son on the blackmail, Ms. Julia, so we should have enough to hand over to Lt. Hurley, but we should probably go.” Angus adds, pulling a thumbdrive from the computer and grabbing Julia and Magnus’ hands._ _

__“That was amazing.” Magnus says, tripping over his feet as he stands up._ _

__“No, really, Julia, that was amazing, I’m so proud of you, and Angus! Good work finding the emails! That was amazing!” Magnus continues as the elevator goes down and they discreetly slip back into the party._ _

__“Taako, Merle, it was amazing!” Magnus says as he’s narrating everything that went down, once they’ve all snuck out of the party (which had honestly turned into a group of confused rich people gossiping about where the fuck Kalen went when he was supposed to be giving a speech) and are driving back home._ _

__Julia doesn’t say anything. Not as they leave the building, not as they drive home, not as they walk up to Magnus’ apartment. She feels like she’s going to burst. She doesn’t know how; into tears? With nerves?_ _

__As it turns out, it’s neither of those things. Magnus walks her up into his apartment, and a swell of gratitude builds up in her. “Thank you. I couldn’t have - I mean, literally, none of this would have happened without you.” She says, and she slumps into Magnus’ couch, feeling like she’s about to start crying._ _

__Magnus stands there awkwardly, before sitting on the opposite end of the couch. “But it doesn’t bring him back.”_ _

__That’s when Julia starts to cry, which of fucking course makes Magnus start crying. “Sorry,” he says through his own tears, “I shouldn’t be - I mean, I barely knew him.”_ _

__“No,” Julia says, shaking her head violently and reaching her hand out, before catching herself and curling it back into her. “He loved you. Talked about you all the time.”_ _

__She takes a deep, broken breath. “What am I going to do?”_ _

__“Well.” Magnus wipes the tears from his face. “You can stay here. For as long as you want, forever if you want. Taako could probably make you some documents? You don’t have to stay, either, I can help you get set up where ever you want.”_ _

__“Can I have some time to decide?” Julia asks, sniffling. “I just - it’s a lot, right now.”_ _

__“Of course. No pressure. All the time you need.”_ _

__She smiles at him, goes to reach out again before sighing, mumbling a “thanks”, and heading to her room._ _

__Magnus leaves at some point - she hears the door click. Julia lays there for what feels like hours, her sobs turning to gut busting laughter, and then back again._ _


	5. Interlude - Merle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life sure does throw you curveballs, huh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realised when i was getting to the end of this fic months ago that certain characters were very underserved despite the fact that i knew their history in the story, so i added a few backstory-ish interludes.

When Merle had quit the clergy, he was already an older man - closer to fifty than he was to forty. He hadn’t been expecting all of the changes that decision would bring; a marriage, two kids, a divorce, a nice little plant shop where he could try to become the man his kids needed after almost a decade of being a dick.

A detective agency staffed by himself, two people with magic, and a little boy.

Life sure does throw you curveballs, huh.

He’d never realized how miserable he’d been until now, looking back; even the few years after he’d left a profession he hated, married to Hecuba and avoiding that and all that came with it, he’d been miserable.

Sometimes he still forgets - Mookie will break half the pots on a shelf by running into them with his head, Mavis will lecture him like he’s the child, Taako will make some snide remark about his age or his looks or his propensity towards plants, Magnus will make a dumb decision - and he’ll, briefly, think back longingly to the life he had before.

It never lasts long. Mookie will somehow make an even bigger mess trying to clean his first one up (but will be so sincere in trying); Mavis will remember she’s a little kid (it’s his fault she forgets, because sometimes he isn’t good at being an adult, and he’s trying so hard not to give her reasons to forget) and he’ll manage to talk her into playing a prank on Angus; Taako will tell him how large his bill at the restaurant is but refuse any cash handed his way; Magnus will come into the store with a new set of shelves or table, for no reason other than he wanted too.

Most of the time, Merle doesn’t even know how he survived the first four plus decades of his life, but he thanks Pan every day that he did, so he could enjoy however much time he had left.


	6. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Man Lucretia, you walk way cooler than you did when we knew each other.” Magnus jokes as she glides - Actually. Fucking. Glides. - over.
> 
> “What?” She laughs.
> 
> “You like, you - uh. Glide.” he mimes, stupidly sliding his feet across the floor.
> 
> “Oh yeah. It’s the heelies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEW CHAPTER! Sorry for the delay, I was procrastinating (despite, as I said in the first chapter, this fic being finished) and then my computer broke. It is now miraculously working so here we go! Say buh-bye to Julia's POV and hello to the new plot beat.

“Good news!” Magnus beams the next night as the five of them sit at their booth at LuLu’s (or, well, Taako is technically flitting back and forth between them, the kitchen, and serving people dinner, but he’s there when Magnus says it, so), hanging up the phone. “Hurley added to the file that Julia was secretly alive all along as part of a sting to take Kalen down! You’re not dead!” The last part is directed at Julia, who gives a little whoop. She’d told him late that morning that she wasn’t sure what she’d be doing long term, but she wanted to stay for now, maybe help out at his shop and on mysteries and what not; this news would definitely help with all plans, current and future.

“How’d she get away with that?” Merle asked.

“Apparently, the coroner on the case was Avi, and as we all know Avi is a super cool dude, so he was totally chill, especially when I texted him a picture of me and Jules last night, thus proving she was alive.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s into you, Sir.” 

“Hurley really, really should not be a cop,” Taako says, shaking his head as he gets up to head back towards the kitchen. “But god, where would we be without her?”

“Are you still planning on coming to the meeting tonight?” Magnus asks Julia. It’s approaching eight o’clock; Taako is shoving out the straggling customers, and they need to leave soon, even if the meeting is in the storefront three doors over that’s had ‘FOR LEASE’ posted in the window the entire time Magnus has lived/worked from the building.

“Sure,” Julia smiles, “I mean, I guess I live here now?”

Taako pushes the last people out the door - literally - and flips the sign hanging at his door to closed, and then they all - Magnus, Merle, Angus, Julia, Taako, and even Ren (Jouquin has classes Monday nights) - head over to the storefront.

The place no longer is bare - Magnus had looked through the glass before, okay? - instead, it's got a few desks neatly set up, and the walls have been painted a soft warm yellow. There’s a banner hanging on the back wall that just says ‘Welcome!’, and a table full of finger food on the left wall. Taako, Angus, Merle, and Ren make a beeline for the snack table - Merle and Taako because they love snickers (which there is a bowl of) and Ren and Angus because Taako is headed that way.

Magnus and Julia mill towards the back. Magnus introduces Julia to some of his neighbors - basically everyone is there - and then he goes to introduce himself to a woman he has never seen.

Only he has. Seen her, that is.

“Lucretia?” Magnus says, gaping at the woman in front of him. He hadn’t seen her since he was eighteen. She had been sixteen; she looked twenty years too old for her to have been sixteen, but it’s unmistakably her. “What are you doing here?”

“Magnus!” She looks just as surprised, a huge smile spreading across her face. “I - wow - um. This is amazing! How are you!” A short man clears his throat near the banner, and her eyes dart to the front of the room. “We’ll have to talk after the meeting, yeah?” She says, and then glides - actually fricking glides - over to the shorter man.

“Attention everyone!” She calls out, and her voice commands respect - all thirty-odd people look at her immediately. “We’re your new landlords, and we just thought we’d have a little meet and greet so we could answer any concerns and get to put some faces to names and what not! I’m Lucretia, and this is-” the man cuts her off at this point, to say: “Davenport.”

“Right! And so, main thing we want to get out of the way: any existing leases or agreements you have will remain the same. Rent will not be going up at this time, and hopefully not at any time in the future.” Lucretia smiles as she says this, and it’s a bit of a shy smile, but Magnus can still feel everyone in the room being put at ease by it.

“The main difference,” Davenport says, “in our being the landlords, is that we want to start doing regular meetings where people can voice their concerns and what not. Oh, and we’re also renting this storefront. That’s basically it.” He pauses. “We’ll be answering any questions you guys have, but right now we really just want to get to know you guys!”

The crowd disperses, and Lucretia and Davenport disperse into, Lucretia headed towards where Magnus and Julia stand.

“Man Lucretia, you walk way cooler than you did when we knew each other.” Magnus jokes as she glides - Actually. Fucking. Glides. - over.

“What?” She laughs.

“You like, you - uh. Glide.” he mimes, stupidly sliding his feet across the floor.

“Oh yeah. It’s the heelies.” She says, straight faced, and he sits there a second not knowing if she’s telling the truth or not until she lifts up her skirt to show them to him. “Took me a bit to get good at these bad boys.”

Julia lets out a giggle. “Oh, yeah!” Magnus says, shaking his head. “Luc, this is Julia Waxmen - remember the girl I was super hung up on when we met at the foster home? And Jules, this is Lucretia. She was one of the other kids at the foster home I went to after Raven's Roost.”

“Who you haven’t seen in twenty years.” Lucretia says with raised eyebrow, but she’s smiling in the way Magnus knows means she feels the same way. “It’s nice to meet you, Julia - he really did talk about you a lot.” Julia smiles back at her, and the three of them start talking - catching up, really.

Ren, Merle, and Angus are talking to Davenport, and-

“Hey, losers.” Taako says, walking up to them, holding a plate full of mini carrots, celery, and more store bought dip than a professional chef should feel comfortable eating.

Lucretia goes ashen, losing the smile. “L-Lup? You’re alright?”

Taako goes, if it's possible, even paler than Lucretia, plate tumbling to the floor. Neither Lucretia nor Taako seem to notice the dip smeared across the industrial carpet. “How do you - did you just say _Lup_?” And shit, he’s crying.

“You’re not-”

“I’m her brother. How the FUCK do you know Lup? Do you know where she is? What about her boyfriend, Barry?” Taako looks wild, hands reaching out and grabbing Lucretia’s shoulders. 

“Taako…” Magnus mutters, and Taako spins towards him, tears running down his face, before dropping his arms from Lucretia’s shoulders to stare her in the eyes. 

“How. Do. You. Know. Lup.” Taako enunciates.

“I. I met her three years ago. She was in trouble. I tried to help her and Barry, but they wouldn’t tell me enough for me to really help. They went missing - or, well, I stopped seeing them around - a year later.” Lucretia says, voice catching on the word missing. 

“Fuck.” Taako sinks to the floor, basically sitting on the floor dip. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. That’s a whole two years after she went missing for me. Fuck.” He’s full on sobbing now, drawing the attention of basically everyone and drawing Angus, Merle, Davenport, and Ren to them.

“Um, Dad, maybe we should go somewhere else?” Angus whispers, patting at Taako’s back in a way that’s probably meant to be reassuring.

“Right, this party went to hell.” Lucretia says, wiping her hand down her face. “Davenport, you mind staying here, clearing stuff up with everyone, and we’ll go to…”

“LuLu’s.” Taako says, lifting himself off of the ground with huge shaking gulps. “My restaurant. We can talk there.”

They walk over there, Taako and Lucretia eyeing each other both with suspicion and hope.

“Listen,” Lucretia says, the minute LuLu’s door is closed behind them, before they even make their way to a booth, before Taako takes the chance to start screaming at her. “Davenport and I, we’re setting up this business, called the ‘Bureau of Benevolence’. We’re planning on helping people, solving mysteries, etc. Our first case was - well. I don’t know if it even counts as a case, as no one hired us for it, but it was going to be Lup and Barry.”

“So, you’re going to put us out of business?” Merle scoffs. “Like, we’re your competition or whatever?”

“No.” Lucretia says firmly. “We aren’t. There weren’t any pictures, because your guys website sort of sucks? So we didn’t know about Taako, and I didn’t know about you, Magnus, but we knew there was a detective agency here, and we were hoping to combine resources by hiring you on as consultants.”

“Sorry about the website, ma’am, I’m still learning web design.” Angus says, blushing.

“Hey, Ango, it’s fine dude. If it has our phone number and the word ‘detective’ on it we’re good.” Taako says, patting Angus’ shoulder.

“Yeah, it's great!” Magnus yells - he’s never seen the website. Didn’t know they had one. “Don’t be fucking rude, Lucretia.”

“This is good though, right?” Julia asks, most likely trying to stop the train from derailing even further. “I mean, I’ve only been a member of your guys’ detective agency for a couple of days, but combining resources and stuff could be useful both for finding Taako’s sister and long term, right?”

They’re all silent for a few minutes. The silence is palpable, in that really palpy way where it just feels there, and imposing and heavy.

“It’s Taako’s choice.” Merle says, and all eyes turn to him. “At least, I’m not doing it if Taako isn’t. It’s his sister, and his friend, and his kid who would be working directly for Lucretia, so it’s his choice.”

The silence after that is palpable in the way that they all know Taako probably wants to scream or cry or punch something - hopefully not Lucretia. What he does instead of any of that is take in a long, rattly breath. “Do you really think you have a chance of finding them?” He asks, staring Lucretia dead in the eyes.

“I used to be a priest,” Merle pipes in, “so know if you lie in front of me you’re basically lying to god.”

“That’s not how-” Lucretia sighs, rests her head in her hands. “Yes. I do think I can find them, or at least that I have enough of a start.”

“Then you have a deal.” Taako says, lazily reaching a hand out to her to shake, all the while keeping his eyes trained sharply on her.

Lucretia shakes his hand firmly, and looks at the rest of them as if asking if they agree with Taako. 

They all nod, because Merle is right - it is Taako’s choice. And even if it wasn’t, Lucretia is super badass and they’d be lucky to work with her.

“Alright.” Lucretia folds her hands into her lap. “From what little I know about what was happening before Lup and Barry disappeared, they were looking into real life necromancy.”

The silence was palpable with - well fuck. It was palpable with the essence of well fuck, because Magnus performed real life necromancy on the regular.

“I’m sorry, what?” Angus asks, staring back and forth between Magnus and Lucretia in shock.

“Necromancy?” She repeats. “The magical act of bringing someone back to life.”

“No, we-” Magnus feels shaky, dizzy, shocked. “We know.”

“Angus has the reading level of a college student.” Taako trills, which does admittedly help with Magnus feels shaky (dizzy shocked), because he can squeak out a comfortable and loving “Nerd” while ruffling at Angus’ fancy-boy hat. “But yeah, Barry was super into that shit. I think it was more scientific curiosity than anything else - necromancy,” Taako says, sliding a look to Magnus, “it’s not like ‘poof! This dudes alive!’, it requires a lot of precision and time. I was never that into it - not my area of science, or whatever - but Lup was into it. That was how they met, actually, at college. Some club that Lup made me join.”

“Right.” Lucretia sighs. “All I know is that they had people after them. People who had - actually done it. Raised the dead and all that. I don’t know names, but they sounded like bad people. Lup and Barry - it was like they _couldn’t_ tell me more than they already had.”

“This is it? That they were into necromancy - which I knew - and that there were people after them?” Taako says snarkily - angrily - and Magnus reaches over Angus and pats a hand on Taako’s shoulder.

“We can make a timeline, sir!” Angus says, sparking up. “We can figure out what was going on when they left you, what happened in between, stuff like that! Detective work!”

“Well then it's a good thing we have the world’s greatest detective at our disposal.” Magnus smiles, elbowing Angus.

“Yes.” Lucretia responds with her own smile, shaky as it may be. “I suggest we meet up tomorrow? Maybe after everyone’s shops have closed?”

“I’ll be meeting you bright and fucking early, lady. I have underlings to run LuLu’s when important shit like finding my sister pops up.” Taako says. “Though the world’s greatest detective has school, so he’ll be joining us later.”

“Right.” Lucretia stand up. “Bright and fucking early for all who can make it.”

And then she leaves.

“So…” Julia draws out. “Magnus isn’t a ‘real necromancer’?”

Magnus bursts out laughing, all the tension leaving his body in a giggle filled wallop. Merle, Angus, and Julia join in, and Taako even manages a snicker.

“Necromancy is basically biology. The only fun bit is the chemistry at the end.” Taako waves his hand, suddenly looking exhausted. “What Magnus can do, it's like. It’s like what I can do - straight up magic.”

“Let’s get some sleep.” Merle says, and Magnus almost makes a joke about old man stamina, until he sees the worried way Merle is eyeing Taako.

“Right.” Magnus slaps his hands on the table, standing up. “See you guys bright and fucking early tomorrow.”


	7. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s all about branding, babe!” Taako yells from his post, adding to a list on the board titled **ALL THE DIPSHITS FROM THE NECROMANCY CLUB WHOSE NAMES I REMEMBER**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look. I have no excuse for not posting this ages ago bc as previously stated, this is a complete story. I'm not even re-reading chapter before posting like i said i would bc i'm lazy! but also the world is crumbling so who the fuck cares idk
> 
> Any way a lot of plot happens in this ep which is wild but hey I'm VERY BAD at plot so it has to zoom by i guess

Bright and fucking early rolls around way too early for Magnus’ liking, but he and Julia are at the Bureau of whatever on time, and dressed, which is good enough for him.

The door is open, and Taako is already leaning casually enough against a wall that people who didn’t know him might think he didn’t care. His eyes were training over the other people in the room; a tall buff woman (tall and buff enough that she could totally take on Magnus and/or Julia, which was pretty fucking tall), and a smaller buff woman casually flipping a butterfly knife (which was illegal? Maybe? Magnus definitely needed to become friends with her) with one hand and holding Bigger Buff Woman’s hand; a sad looking guy with headphones tight in his ears; Merle, who was surprisingly on time and looking at pictures of what appeared to be sailboats with Davenport at the latter’s desk; Lucretia, also surveying the room, though with a much less obvious tenseness set into her shoulder; and Avi, who was asking her if she wanted a sip from his flask.

Taako’s eyes dart to Magnus and Julia as soon as they walked in, and he pops up and claps his hands, yelling, “Alright!” just as Lucretia finishes taking a long sip from Avi’s flask.

“That stuff will fuck you up.” Magnus says as they all walk over to Taako.

“Only if you’re weak,” Julia says, just as Lucretia smiles and says, “I’ll be fine.” and Avi protests, “It’s not that strong!”

“Enough talking about Magnus’ low alcohol tolerance.” Taako says. “Let’s talk about how we’re actually going to do this.”

“RIght. “Lucretia sighs. “Introductions, I guess.” She points to each person in the awkward circle, listing off names. “Magnus, Julia, Taako, Merle, Davenport, Killian, Carey, Johann, Avi, and myself, Lucretia.”

Taako smiles sharply. “Great great, now let’s get to _finding my fucking sister_.”

“Right.” Lucretia says. “Like Angus said, we should create a timeline. Taako, that’s probably something we should do, unless anyone else here had contact with your sister and her boyfriend. Also, I have some emails and texts she sent me; I was hoping some people could go over the texts and do some research into clues, and other could just look up necromancy stuff online?”

“That’s your big plan? Use google?” Merle asks before Taako gets the chance.

“What the fuck ever.” Taako growls, stalking over to a wall of whiteboards and writing down **LUP MEETS BARRY FUCKING BLUEJEANS**. Lucretia sighs, waves her hand to the remaining BoB, and walks over to Taako.

“So, Avi. You quit your job?” Magnus jokes, as Avi offers his flask to Julia.

“No, just thought I could help out down here. Lucretia offered me a part-time position, and this seems like a good place, so.” He shrugs, both as an end to his sentence and to Julia turning down the drink.

“You want to look through the emails?” Merle asks Magnus. “I don’t know how to search the google.”

“I could show you.” Davenport offered, and Merle waggled his eyebrows at Magnus before following the short man.

“You gross old man! I’ve seen you use google! It’s not cute!” Magnus calls after him.

Carey laughs. “You own the Hammer place, right?”

“We offer bespoke carpentry.” He says, wiggling his fingers along with his words.

Carey laughs, and Julia raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“It’s all about branding, babe!” Taako yells from his post, adding to a list on the board titled **ALL THE DIPSHITS FROM THE NECROMANCY CLUB WHOSE NAMES I REMEMBER**.

“Get to work!” Lucretia calls commandingly. 

Magnus shrugs and sits down at his desk, but not before saying to Carey, “You need to teach me that butterfly knife move.”

She smiles at him, and hands him his wallet. Which delays work another few minutes as Magnus begs Carey to teach him how to pickpocket, but eventually they settle into a fairly steady work routine, occasionally leaving their posts to write things on the whiteboards or pin printed sheets to the whiteboard cork rims.

By the time Angus walks in - Taako watching intently from the window to make sure he isn’t snatched on the short walk over, and then blaise-ly acting like he hadn’t been doing that the second Angus walked in the door - they had an entire wall of whiteboards (plus three more wheel-around ones Lucretia had produced) covered in topics that ranged anywhere from best practices in inconspicuously disposing of bodies to an elderberry macaron recipe (Joaquin hadn’t run lunch over yet, so they’d been very hungry). Unfortunately, the one thing it seemed the boards were missing was connections to Lup and Barry’s disappearance. 

And then Angus McDonald, genius boy detective, takes one five second long look at the massive boards and the massive amounts of notes on said massive boards, and says, “Who are Edward and Lydia? They show up a few times.”

“Oh my god.” Taako says, wrapping his arm around Angus for a one shouldered hug as Killian grabs the literal red string and pushpins to find the said mentions and connect them. “I’m disowning you and then re-adopting you.”

Angus pushes his jostled glasses up his nose. “I don’t think that’s allowed.”

“Fine, then you’re getting the best eleventh birthday party this universe has ever seen. A cake big enough you could theoretically fit in. Or NOT theoretically fit in. Clowns. Rock walls. Whatever else eleven year old kids like.” Taako says dramatically, letting go of the giggling boy. “Now who the fuck are Lydia and Edward?”

“Their names are right here,” Angus stands on his tiptoes to point to two names under **ALL THE DIPSHITS FROM THE NECROMANCY CLUB WHOSE NAMES I REMEMBER** and then pointing to one of the printed texts to Lucretia from Lup, that read “Lyd n Ed said theyd help us get some of tht illegal stuff, so we might b getting r necromancy on 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥”.

“How did I miss that?” Lucretia says incredulously, as Magnus, Merle, Taako, and Julia lined up to high five Angus.

“Right, well, we have a lead.” Lucretia says, as she’s high fiving Angus. “Everyone get to looking into an Edward and Lydia who attended New Elfington College.”

…

It was actually fairly easy to find said people - while there were obviously a lot of people named Lydia and Edward going to the school in the general timeframe, Taako spent about thirty minutes on Facebook before he managed to find a friend of a friend of a friend of Lup’s from the club who’d posted a picture of the Necromancy club together, which had set of twins tagged as Lydia and Edward.

Their last post on Facebook - posted to both of their pages - was a link to a Youtube channel where they modelled their “fashion haul”. After some digging through both of their pages, Taako found a picture of them from two years ago with an elbow that Taako insisted was Lup’s (it did look a lot like Taako’s elbow, to be fair), but that was the extent of ‘clues’ that they could find on Facebook. Lydia’s Instagram, however, had a picture of the two of them posted yesterday, posing for the camera in a large mirror with what appeared to be a fancy hotel room. The location tag at the top of the post was, sure enough, for a hotel. A hotel that turned out to be…

“A fucking five minute drive.” Taako says, staring at the photo in shock. “We have to go. They might know something.”

“It’s late, Taako.” Lucretia said, looking around the room - at this point, just she, Taako, Magnus, Merle, Julia, and Angus remained.

Taako stood up, chair tipping backward and slamming to the floor. “I don’t fucking care. It’s barely even 10pm! They have a picture with Lup in it _after_ you last saw her! We have to go! Who knows when they’re going to leave!”

“Well then let's go.” Julia says insistantly as she stands up, then Merle, Magnus and Angus stand up with her. “Worst thing we do is interrupt their sleep.”

Taako sets his jaw, and snags Magnus’ keys from his pocket, heading out to the street. 

“Are you in or out?” Magnus says to Lucretia, as everyone else heads out.

“What the fuck.” She sighs dejectedly, and then walks over to a rack on the wall over her desk where a pair of keys hang. “I’ll follow behind you guys.” 

…

The five minute drive ends up taking three, Taako zigzagging through the streets, Lucretia following close behind. 

Once they get to the hotel they’re hit with the obvious problem of not knowing what room, or even what floor, Edward and Lydia are staying on.

This problem is relatively easily solved via Magnus charming the pants off of the guy at the desk while Lucretia simultaneously stared him down and Angus looked up Lydia and Edward’s room on his computer.

They then hop into an elevator - always fun - and ride up to their floor.

“So,” Lucretia asks as they watch the number of floors slowly tick up. “What’s the plan?”

Magnus raises his eyebrows at Taako. This was usually his line; instead, Taako clenches his hand into a fist and shakes his head minutely at Magnus. “We bang their door down. We get them to answer our questions. And, well.” He deflates. “I don’t know.”

Magnus puts a hand on Taako’s shoulder; Merle pats his arm. “It’ll be okay.” 

“We’ll get answers.” Julia promises. “Even if we have to punch it out of them.” Her smile wobbles. “Answers help.” She reaches out and puts her hand on Taako’s shoulder; Magnus is shocked when Taako accepts it with a weak smile. He’d always doled out physical contact on his terms, only accepting unsolicited touching from Angus and, if it was a particularly good day, Magnus and Merle.

Lucretia nods; the display flicks to the final floor. “Right. Sounds like a plan.”

The doors open, and they file into the hallway. The hotel is expensive, but other than overly gilded picture frames hanging from the wall and clean carpet, the hallway looks a lot like any other hotel hallway Magnus had been in.

The bang on the door. For several minutes. With a lot of screaming. Finally, Julia sighs and shoos them all to the side.

“What are you doing?” Magnus asks.

Julia squares her shoulders. “Taako said we were going to bang their door down.” And then she rams into the door with her shoulder, splintering the wood around the door handle. “God, that wasn’t even hard. How much a night does this place cost?”

She swings the door open, flicks on a light.

There, lying in the middle of the room, surrounded by overly mystical candles and shit, lie the bodies of a woman who looks nearly identical to Taako, and a man wearing bluejeans.

Taako screams. Merle covers Angus’ eyes, despite the fact that the kid sees dead bodies on the regular.

“Taako.” Magnus says. Taako doesn’t stop screaming. “Taako!” Magnus says, louder, and he also gives the other man a light shove. “We need to find Lydia and Edward and get Lup and Barry’s bodies somewhere less...populated.”

It washes over the others, then, the obviousness of what needs to be done. Taako stops screaming. Julia walks towards the bathroom, citing the need for towels.

“What the fuck?” Lucretia says. “I know you all aren’t the best detectives around, but you don’t move dead fucking bodies.”

“Listen, it sounds weird, but we do! Because we need to! And we need to find the people that killed them, we need to find Edward and Lydia, like, now. I’ll explain later, Luce. Just trust me.”

“Sure.” She says, tired. “I’ll trust the man I haven’t seen in twenty years. I’ll aid and abet in moving two dead bodies. Sounds like a blast.” Still, she says this and she walks towards the bed, dumping out the contents of a comically large stage trunk. “It’s not pretty, and I’m not sure how you feel about stuffing your sister in here,” she directs this bit at Taako, obviously, “but we can’t just Weekend at Bernie’s them out of here.”

Taako’s face does - something. But he nods. 

And then Lydia and Edward walk in.

They appraise the scene way too calmly, eyes looking deeply at everyone in the room.

And the Edward goes to reach for something in his pocket, just as Taako yells “you fucking assholes!” and gesticulates at them, turning their jackets to lead.

They drop to the floor.

“You did this.” It isn’t a question. “Why?”

“You’re Lup’s little brother?” Edward asks.

“Duh.”

“We… we no longer needed them. They were helpful, in decoding certain things and experimenting on others.” Lydia smiles, far to calm for a woman lead jacket-ed to the floor by the man whose sister she had just killed.

“Less so once we kidnapped them, told them we’d kill you if they didn’t cooperate, and then bewitched them into believing that we could.” Edward smirked.

“Well, yes, they cooperated but fought back, you know how it is.” Lydia laughed. “Anywho, they’d done all they could for us while still alive. So we killed them!”

“Used their souls to make ourselves live for - well. It’s never been done before, but the theory is forever!”

Taako kicked them both, hard, and repeatedly. Then he turned to Magnus, who was watching Julia, Lucretia, and Merle try and comfortably position the two corpses in the towel lined trunk. “Will this still work with everything they did?”

“I don’t know.” Magnus says. “We’ll try, though.”

Taako nods. “Yeah. We will.”

He turns the sleeves of their jackets back into fabric so he can maneuver their hands into the handcuff he’s made from drapery rope, then he and Julia force them up, Magnus pulling the trunk and the other three doing their best to make the situation look less suspicious.

Taako rode in the car with Lucretia, Edward and Lydia in the back, on the way to the field they were headed for; even though the amount of magic he’d already done had him worn out, they couldn’t risk something happening to the two.

They pull up into the dark field. “Leave the car running.” Taako says, pulling Lydia and Edward towards the field where Magnus is already wheeling the large trunk.

A few moments later, Edward and Lydia’s jackets re-leaded, Taako jumps back into the car.

“Drive.”

“What?”

“Just do it!” He yells, and she does, zipping down the lane they’d come in on, following close to the car being driven precariously by Merle.

Until, Taako gets a text and starts to cry. “Turn around.” he says. The car in front of them has slowed down and is beginning to turn, so Lucretia does the same. They drive with the same urgency back up the road they just came down.

There, in the field, is Magnus. Talking to Lup and Barry. Taako jumps out of the car, goes running. It takes Lup a minute to notice, she’s so engrossed in Magnus’ description of his own necromancy.

And then Taako barrels into her, and she notices. 

It's a tearful reunion, mostly on Taako and Barry’s part. It’s a lot of hugging - Barry included in all of it. It’s almost twenty minutes when they’re done, still sitting hugging in the cold field. 

“Did Magnus explain how this works?” Taako finally asks, reluctantly pulling himself away for just a second to stand up and drag the two with him. He waves his hand towards Edward and Lydia - and suddenly they’re not there, piles of dirt in their place.

“Yeah,” Barry says. “Essentially no touching?” Magnus shoots him a thumbs up.

“Who’re all your friends?” Lup asks, scanning the people standing in front of her, eyes lighting up when she spots Lucretia.

“Well, you already know Luce. And Magnus. This is Julia; she was also recently undeaded, and she and Magnus are maybe a thing?” Magnus shoves Taako. “Ow. Anyway, this is Merle, he’s old. And this is my son, Angus.”

“I’m gone for four years and you get a son!” Lup yells exuberantly, and then she grabs Angus by the shoulders, inspecting him. “I’m a mother fucking aunt!” 

“I mean, you _were_ gone for four years.” Taako’s voice is - sad. Angry, but not at Lup. “Things were bound to change. Like for example - got accused of poisoning a bunch of people. Adopted this here boy. Opened up a restaurant. You know. The usual stuff.”

For some reason, neither Lup nor Barry seem to look like any of that stuff is unusual. Which. Bodes well for the group's future friendship, at least.

“Speaking of, should we head back?” Merle asks. “It’s getting late, and my kids are coming over on Wednesday…”

“You need a whole day to prepare for that?” Magnus jokes - Lucretia hands her keys over to Taako, to which he actually mumbles a surprised thank you. Then he, Barry, Lup, and Angus head into the car, touching and hugging each other the whole way there.

The remaining four clamber into Magnus’ car. 

The drive is silent for a while, edged with - surprise, that it all came together so quickly, relief that they actually did it. Confusion, on Lucretia’s part.

“So, what was that?” Lucretia asks, twisting in her seat to stare directly at Magnus. It was the type of stare you couldn’t avoid.

“Kind of a long story.” Magnus sighs, looking at Julia and Merle sitting in the back in his rearview mirror. “You guys okay with hearing it again?”

“Sure,” Julia smiles, while Merle mumbles something about taking a nap.

“So, when I was fifteen my goldfish Stephen died and then I touched him and…”


	8. Interlude - Julia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Julia had woken up in the middle of the night to an oppressive layer of smoke filling her room and sucking into her lungs, she hadn’t had much of a chance to get out. She did, however, have time to make her peace with the whole dying thing - she was only thirty, sure, but she’d had a good life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ughhh this one sucks lol

When Julia had woken up in the middle of the night to an oppressive layer of smoke filling her room and sucking into her lungs, she hadn’t had much of a chance to get out. She did, however, have time to make her peace with the whole dying thing - she was only thirty, sure, but she’d had a good life. 

And then she wakes up, and Magnus Burnsides is leaning over her.

She doesn’t really have time to process it all then - there was murder (manslaughter? Not even that? Who knows how the rules of this shit works), and then setting up the man who killed her and her father, and then - then mourning her father.

(She thinks about asking Magnus to bring him back - she knows he would - but with every passing minute it seems like less and less of a good idea. She cuts her finger while helping Magnus out at the shop one day, and when it still isn’t healed a few days later, when it isn’t even inching towards being healed, she knows she can’t bring her father back; she’d read the reports, and he hadn’t died of smoke inhalation like she had, he’s also been burned, and she couldn’t bring herself to bring him back knowing what pain he’d be in.)

Beyond all of that drama, though, life is surprisingly good. Magnus and she click just as well as they did as kids, and while they’re touching is confined to through clothing, it in some ways makes the budding romance feel sweeter. Like they're in one of those old timey period pieces where the flash of an ankle is enough to get someone steamy.

The Hammer & Tong is a nice place - a cute little storefront with trinkets and a large backroom where Magnus, and now she, make the larger orders. It does good business, between tourists who come into Neverwinter and buy the little ducks Magnus carves as they watch tv at night and the people who come in with custom orders ranging from cabinetry to carvings, and the work is what she’s used to, what she’s good at. Sometimes she’ll turn to ask her dad how something looks, or what finish he thinks would work, or to show her that one trick she’s never managed to learn just right to make chair spindles stay tight in their nooks, but that’s quickly fading (she’s not sure how she feels about that - sometimes a little suppression is okay, helpful even).

Magnus’ apartment is nice, too, and homey. He keeps telling her she should go out and buy some of her own stuff to fill the place up with, but it’s already filled with his memories and besides, she’s always been the type to collect things as she goes, not all at once.

She can feel herself carving out a life here - a new one, sure, a different one that her nice quiet life in Raven’s Roost. But she likes this life. When she wakes up in the morning, she’s always happy to be alive.


	9. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You do realize that I have to spend the rest of my life getting back at you for naming your fucking restaurant LuLu’s, right?” Lup says, once she, Taako, and Barry have finally calmed down from the panicked hugging/crying they’d resumed the minute they got to Taako’s apartment .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop there it is

“You do realize that I have to spend the rest of my life getting back at you for naming your fucking restaurant LuLu’s, right?” Lup says, once she, Taako, and Barry have finally calmed down from the panicked hugging/crying they’d resumed the minute they got to Taako and Angus’ apartment (Angus had also been invited, but he’d had to leave to go work on homework by this point).

“Well I was fucking mad at you, Lup. You guys just left me!”

“Ok, one, Ed and Lyd did some crazy magic shit to us that made us forget you or think they could hurt you, so?” Lup says, and then she scrunches her face and sticks out her tongue. “Like, do you really think I’d just leave you? So much that you had to go with fucking LuLu’s!”

“I will have you know LuLu’s has become a staple of the city.” Taako says, sticking his tongue out at her in retaliation. Barry snorts out a laugh.

“God, it’s good to be home.” He says, sitting in an apartment building he’s never been in in a town he’s never before called home. Lup hums in agreement, and leans into Barry, pulling Taako closer as she does so.

“All jokes aside, I can’t believe my baby brother has a popular restaurant, a son, and friends he made without my help.” Lup sounds wistful, but also happy; Taako knows he’s always been the more emotionally repressed of the two, and not having his sister around has been a blow to - well, basically his whole personality. The whole twin psychic thing, even interrupted by years apart, let him know she was happy for him, despite everything.

Taako sighs. “You’ll like them. Magnus is easy to get along with, Merle’s kind of - well, he’s a gross old man but he’s also pretty great. I haven’t known Julia long - I don’t think she’s been re-alived” he wiggles his fingers with this, even though he’s seen Magnus touch someone and knows it generally doesn’t involve a lot of finger waving, “even a full week yet, but she seems pretty cool. Ren - works at LuLu’s - is almost as badass as you are, Joaquin - who also works at LuLu’s - is a pretty sweet kid, and, well, you’ve seen firsthand how great Ango is.” He hasn’t felt complete without Lup (and yes, Barry Bluejeans, the fucker) but thinking about his friends, about his _son_ , had always given him warmth. It just felt so much fucking better curled up in Lup’s arms.

“So you just met Lucretia like, yesterday?” Taako lets out a disbelieving sigh. Had it really only been yesterday?

“Yeah, she thought I was you.” Taako smiles, as though hearing Lucretia say Lup’s name hadn’t been utterly heartbreaking at the time. “I - well. I can’t say I know her or like her yet, but she had some information and a small army that helped get you back, so.”

“I’m not pro murder, except for when I am, and holy hell am I pro Lydia and Edward being gone.” Lup laughs, and then yawns.

Barry also yawns, and mumbles out something that sounds like, “I’m totally pro murder.”

Taako glances at his phone. “It’s getting late. We - I should go to bed, I have to open LuLu’s tomorrow.” He begrudgingly pulls himself away from Lup, and stands up. “Look, I have an extra room but it doesn’t have a bed-”

Barry laughs. “If you think Lup is going to sleep anywhere but your bed for at least the next month, the past four years have really changed you.”

“Oh thank god.” Taako says. His smile is shaky, but well. It’s been four years. “You guys go get ready for bed - Lup, steal my clothes if you want, and Barry, Mag said he’d hang some extra clothes on my door knob since you can’t fit in my stuff - I need to go make sure Angus is actually going to bed and not staying up to read.”

Taako feels weird (and he can tell Lup feels the same way), walking away from two of the most important people in his life who he only just got back, but it’s not an overly large apartment, and as much as he and Lup like to tout codependency as a staple of their relationship that’s actually not true and definitely not something he should slip into now that she’s back.

“Knock knock,” Taako says in a sing song voice outside of Angus’ door, waiting a perfunctory five seconds before barging in. Sure enough, Angus is in bed, reading one of his Caleb Cleveland books.

“Hey dad.” He says, and when he catches the way Taako’s eyeing the book he slips his bookmark - a Magnus original - into the pages and sets the book at his desk. “How are Aunt Lup and Uncle Barry?”

“It took me what, six months to get you to stop calling me ‘sir’ or ‘Taako’ and instead call me ‘dad’, but it only takes them one evening before they’re getting called ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’?” Taako pouts, but it’s not an overly convincing pout - he’s bone tired, not just because it’s fast approaching way too late for his early morning schedule (it’s already zoomed by too late for Angus’ - maybe he’ll call the kid in sick tomorrow).

“They’re good.” He finally says. “It’s. Kind of like nothing and everything has changed. I guess we’ll see how we all fare tomorrow.”

“I’m sure it will be fine, sir. There’s no proof they were dead, so we don’t even have to worry about that like we did with Ms. Julia. Plus, you always said Aunt Lup makes better chicken curry than you, so she can even help out at the shop!”

“Shhh kid, we can’t let her know I said that!” Taako says, making a slashing motion while Angus giggles. “You need to go to sleep. I might call in to school for you tomorrow - sudden reappearance of a lost relative seems like an okay excuse - but even then I’m pretty sure little kids need like, a fuckton of sleep.”

“Okay.” Angus says, sinking down lower into his bed and taking off his glasses. “Night, dad.”

“Night, Angus.”

Taako walks the few steps to his room; he can hear the low murmur of people talking from it, but he’s still nervous that when he walks through the door Lup and Barry will somehow be gone again.

He walks through the door. Lup is sitting on his bed while Barry finishes up in the bathroom. She looks up at Taako and smiles, and Taako for the first time in a long time feels like he is well and truly home.

(He doubles back not even a minute later to scoop Angus up, because he really needed to cuddle all of his people right now. Sue him).

…

When Taako gets up the next morning, Lup and Barry get up with him. Angus is still asleep, so he writes a quick note letting him know that he doesn’t have to go to school, and calls in saying he’s sick.

Morning prep doesn’t take too long, and it takes even less time with Lup there helping him (Barry isn’t a help, and Lup and Taako have given up trying to teach him to cook a long time ago).

Ren arrives for her shift, and the morning rush passes by in a blur. Ren gets along with Lup and Barry, which Taako had totally called and wasn’t at all proud of, no way.

Angus comes down around ten, which is late in boy detective time, and the day goes normally.

As normal as it can when your sister and friend who were missing for four years are back...which is like, really fucking normal, apparently. Barry and Lup slide back into his life like they’d never left.

Angus walks over to Lucretia and Davenport’s store around five - Lup laughs at Taako for standing by the window to watch him walk over until he tells her that the kid is literally ten years old, at which point she and Barry join him (Ren doesn’t, but that’s mostly because one of them needs to actually be working).

Once the shop closes up that night, everyone gathers back up at LuLu’s. Magnus almost cries like, four times, and Taako doesn’t do emotion but. He sees his little family - Lup and Barry and Angus and Magnus and Merle and Julia - crammed in a booth seat, Angus extolling the virtues of the Caleb Cleveland novels to a genuinely enraptured Barry (who’s always been to genuine and nice for his own good, fuck Taako has missed him), and it’s enough to make his eyes well up more than once.

So much so that he doesn’t notice tall, dark and bony standing in the shadows until the man clears his throat and says, in what might be a cockney accent, “Well, I think you lot have some explaining to do.”


	10. Interlude - Angus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus McDonald is a pretty smart kid - hell, he can probably just count himself as a pretty smart person, if he’s being honest.

Angus McDonald is a pretty smart kid - hell, he can probably just count himself as a pretty smart _person_ , if he’s being honest.

When he was little kid, he hadn’t thought his life was weird - sure, he was eight, and basically living on his own (his parents had abandoned him to his grandfather when he was six, and while the older man tried he was getting up in his years enough that Angus had to take care of things like chores and cooking). But that stuff was all normal for older people, and so was running a detective agency, so why wasn’t it normal for a kid? Everyone had always told Angus he was smart for his age, smart enough he could probably finish high school and start college before he even hit fourteen.

When he’s met Taako, Magnus, and Merle on the Rockport Express, he had thought they were pretty stupid. They’d all given him obviously fake names, had mostly mocked him, and had been so blasé and jovial he hadn’t expected them to be investigating the same case as he was.

The case in question had actually been pretty easy to crack (Caleb Cleveland’s second book had a pretty similar mystery) - Leeman Kessler had been carrying valuable property, and there was a hastily spackled over bullet hole through a chair and into the wall of the train. It was obvious that it was an inside job, and the slight signs of a fight on Jenkins led Angus to believe it was him (and also, like, his personality. The man was kind of snide and shitty), he just needed more tangible proof to bring to the cops.

What he hadn’t expected was the discovery of Leeman Kessler’s corpse - or the man who poked at it and brought it back to life.

Two years later, age ten, with a Dad and two Uncles a prosperous detective agency, Angus could recognize that his life had been weird. And was now, in most ways, even weirder. His dad and one of his uncles could do magic, his detective agency operated largely around the fact that his uncle’s magic could bring people back to life, and he had a family who actually cared about him. He sometimes forgot how luck he was - when he was at school and none of them were around, when he was alone in his room doing homework. But then he’d go to LuLu’s and see Uncle Magnus and Uncle Merle in their booth, arguing with each other and his dad, before Uncle Magnus called him over to look at a new carving of his or Uncle Merle asked if he’d babysit (“have a playdate with”) Mookie. Or Dad would knock on Angus’ door and poke his head in to ask if the boy wanted a snack or a drink while he worked, and he’d have the warmth of a fresh muffin or hot chocolate to remind him he wasn’t alone.

And now, in the space of two weeks, he had a few more members in his family - Julia, who was smart and funny and even louder than Magnus; Lucretia, who talked to him like he was an adult (so did everyone else except for Merle and sometimes dad, really, unless there was something bothering him, but Lucretia was especially good at Adult and Serious conversations about things like his detective work and his favorite books); and Aunt Lup (dad had tried to bribe him into calling her Aunt LuLu on their way up the their apartment, but Angus made the executive decision that he wanted her to like him and had decided not to) and Uncle Barry, who he barely knew but who put his dad at an ease and comfort he’d never seen before.

He almost felt guilty that he’d never managed to make his dad this comfortable, and when he’d gone to his room the night after they’d saved Lup and Barry had even felt stupidly left out, even though he knew Lup and Barry had been missing for four years and he’d only known Taako for two years, and officially been his son for less than one.

He wasn’t left feeling that way for long though, because before he could get to deep into wallowing (or chastising himself for feeling that way), Taako had come into his room (without the agreed upon knock that Taako had insisted on for Angus’ privacy; not that he was complaining) and scooped a giggling Angus up.

He fell asleep surrounded by his family - both the three wedged in the bed he was in and the many others spread out throughout the surrounding apartments.

Angus McDonald is a much smarter boy than he was two years ago; smart enough to know that thinking he was grown up at the age of eight was silly, and smart enough to know he wanted to hold onto being a little kid for a bit longer, if it meant he got to hold onto the family he’d made.


	11. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look, I’m really not supposed to do this, but we can make a bet. Play a... game of sorts.”
> 
> “Like in Bill and Ted.” Magnus says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! When I wrote this chapter I had never seen the second Bill and Ted (which is referenced). And then I rewatched the first and watched the second in preparation for the newest one being released. 
> 
> Just to further push how long its taken me to finish this fic. 
> 
> Also I was such a naive sheltered child that hearing regular show use the word "pissed" forever changed me.

“Who the fuck are you?” Taako yells, transforming the wooden spoon in his hand into a heavy baseball bat at the same moment that Lup conjures a broiling ball of flame in her hand. He pushes Angus back to her, and she in kind puts the boy safely behind her.

“Well.” the man looks shocked - body language, because again, skeleton face! - as he looks between the twins, his accent slipping enough for a second that Taako is now 90% sure it's fake. “I guess the big guy isn’t the only one who can do magic?”

“What do you know about that?” Magnus asks, stepping forward to, as Taako can only presume, stupidly place himself in between the skeleton (!!!) and his friends.

“Right. Well. Look. I come in peace?” the skeleton shrugs, which really only accentuates the scythe he’s holding by making the motherfucker bob and wave about. “It's just, I’m a grim reaper and you’re really disrupting the whole life-to-death flow. I mean, I count three people in this room alone who shouldn’t be alive.”

Barry looks almost excited, the bastard. “So you’re a grim reaper? As in the fictional entity?”

“Er. Yes, I suppose the myths are, well. Based on us.”

“So there’s more than one of you!”

“Barold!” Taako hisses. “Skeletor is here to reclaim your fucking soul!”

“Oh.” fucking Barry doesn’t even look put off by that. If anything, the mother fucker looks intrigued. Taako pushes down the part of him that’s endeared by that, and lets the part of him that has the gut reaction of _Barry Bluejeans is the fucking stupidest man alive_ to grow. “Are you?”

“Well, here’s the thing.” the grim says, somehow looking sheepish as he swivels from the weapon holding twins and the intrigued Barry to face Magnus. “There’s never been anyone like you, Magnus Burnsides. My- my boss has never had to account for non-necromantic revivification. But despite the little-” he twirls his fingers, “loophole, we can’t just let this shit slide. When you were just bringing people back for a minute, it was an annoyance that we decided to kindly overlook. Now it’s a liability. You’re not just bringing people back who should be dead, you’re also killing people - bad people, yes, no one back home’s gonna deny that, but people who still had time left in the world of the living.”

“What are you saying?” Lup asks. Taako feels like he’s going to throw up. He wants to grab his family and shove them out of the restaurant before the skeleton can open his mouth, because he knows what's coming.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to reclaim your three souls, like he said.” the skeleton gesture between Lup, Julia, and Barry, before glancing over at Taako. “And Magnus, you’ll have to come with me. My boss has legal dominion over death, so it’ll be like… like a trial.”

“No fucking way, bone-man.” Taako growls, grip tightening around his bat. “I just got them back. You are not touching anyone in here.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” the man grimaced. “Look, I meant it when I said I came in peace. I’m not supposed to do any harm to anyone alive, and that, to an extent, includes the three of you that are no longer dead. But I can do harm, if I have to. _Please_ don’t make me have to.”

“Sir.” Angus says, and Taako whirls around, hissing for him to be quiet. If the grim reaper starts swinging, Taako needs to make sure Angus wasn’t even on his radar.

The boy gives him a firm little shake of his head, and then starts again. “Sir, isn’t there some sort of bargain we could make, for their souls? With the promise that no one else would be brought back for any longer than a minute?”

“I.” the grim reaper dither. “Look, I’m really not supposed to do this, but we can make a bet.”

“A bet.” Lup deadpans.

“Play a... game of sorts.”

“Like in Bill and Ted.” Magnus says, almost laughing a little. 

“Or Regular Show.” Merle chimes in. “What? Mookie likes it because it’s a kids show that said ‘pissed’.”

“Yes. I guess.” the skeleton reaches into the pocket of his suit and pulls out a deck of cards. “Listen, I really shouldn’t be doing this. But-”

“You have a gambling addiction?” Lup says, and Taako bites back a retort (though from the look she gives he, he bets she could practically her him saying “you’re one to talk”).

“ _But_.” The grim reaper says, looked more peeved and less scary than any reanimated skeleton corpse had the right to, “you all seem nice enough. And being a grim reaper can be...tedious, so sue me if I want to jazz things up a bit. If I win, you three are reclaimed and Magnus faces trial. If you win, you’ll have to sign a contract; you can never bring another soul back for longer than a minute. The second you do, mistake or no, I’ll come back for the three of you who are undead and for Magnus. And you should also know: I’m giving you a fair shot. This is a game of chance. But,” his skeleton face flashes human (hot), probably just so he can show off the smirk (even hotter) on his face, “I always win.”

“I’ll play against you.” Magnus says, shooing everyone out of the booth. “What are the rules?”

“You know the game war?” Magnus nods as the grim reaper begins shuffling the deck. “It’s like that, only we’ll draw only once. Whoever has the higher card obviously wins. Are you okay with playing aces as the highest card and spades as the trump?” Magnus nods. “Here, cut the deck.”

The man finishes shuffling, and then deals out each player half the deck, one card at a time. 

“Alright, would someone do the honors of a count? We’ll flip on three.” the man-who-was-previously-a-skeleton asks.

“One.” Julia starts, pale. “Two.”

In that split second, as Magnus takes his card from the top, Taako prays to any god who’s listening that they’re not unlucky enough for the top card in the grim reapers deck to be an ace of spades. And then, with a subtle flex of his fingers around the baseball bat he’s still gripping like a lifeline, whatever card Magnus had been about to flip becomes the ace of spades.

“Three.”

The two men flip their cards, and for a half second Taako feels queasy, seeing that the grim reaper has a black ace - before he sees the clubs, and breathes a sigh of relief. Julia, who had processed the cards faster than him, was cheering. The grim reaper was slack jawed. 

“Well.” he said, and for a second it seemed like he’d lost the accent. “Well. I suppose that’s that.” He gathers up the cards, shaking slightly, and once Magnus’ winning card is back in the deck Taako makes sure to drop the transmutation on it - no sense in leaving evidence. Hopefully the grim reapers boss wasn’t all knowing.

“I.” the man fidgets, “I suppose you lot have won your souls fair and square. Have a nice day?”

Taako lets out a relieved giggle as the man backs up, looking a little lost, and gives them a wave good-bye seemingly before realizing what he was doing and tightening his grip around his scythe.

The grim reapers’ exit is a lot more dramatic than his entrance, which is a little ironic seeing as he was walking away without any souls. A puff of black smoke that lingers in the air, and the figure is gone.

“What. The. Fuck!” Magnus cheered. “Holy shit! I just beat death! I just faced death down and won!” He and Julia twitch towards each other before shooting farther apart - Taako felt bad for them; he was a much less touch-heavy person than Magnus and even he wanted to hug his loved ones right now.

Speaking of, he scoops Angus into a hug. “Ango, you are a genius, but if you ever speak to death again I will personally kill you myself.”

“Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?” Taako thinks Angus says - he’s too smushed against Taako’s chest to be sure.

“I am so glad you’re teaching the boy the Taaco wit.” Lup says, wiping a fake tear from her eye, before latching onto the two of them, pulling Barry with her. “Also Angus I fully back Taako up and will hold him to his promise because holy shit kid, I’ve known you for like a day but we’re ride or die in this bitch.”

“Should I perform one of the necromancy rituals we learned about to bring the grim reaper back and ask more questions?” Barry asks, stunned, and Lup responds with a ‘hell yes’ and a high five, before being smacked by Julia.

“I could personally go my whole un-life without seeing the fucking _grim reaper_ again.” she says, “Like, I’ll be a little buff old lady living in the countryside with forty great-grandkids ninety years from now and I still don’t want to see the fuckers face.”

“I don’t know, he seemed nice.” Merle shrugs, and Magnus squawks.

“You have an ONGOING grudge with me for killing a gardenia, but you’re okay with the guy who just threatened half of our lives?”

“Okay kids, settle down.” Taako says. “I’m going to go do prep for tomorrow. Angus, Lup, and Barry legally have to come with me into the kitchen, but anyone who wants to stop being a loud annoying asshole is also permitted, one time offer, out of the kindness of my heart.”

They all move into the kitchen, and all continue to be loud annoying assholes. Taako drops the act of caring five minutes in, and then proceeds to join them.


	12. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If you’d hear me out, I have a legitimate deal for the three of you-” Kravitz gestures to Julia, Lup, and Barry “that I feel would be both beneficial to both you and the Raven Queen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here she is! the last chapter!

Things are peaceful after that - sure, they have to pretend not to care when people talk about the ‘mysterious deaths of those instagram influencer twins’, but Taako handles that easy, natch. 

Things go back to normal; their cases are easily fixed by either a 60-second talk with a dead person or the combination of Angus’ and Lucretia’s smarts (to be honest, Taako Merle and Magnus mostly just hang back anymore - it’s more an excuse for the three of them to hang out than it is them actually helping to solve mysteries at this point), Julia starts working at Magnus’ shop, Lup and Barry start going about finding jobs (their old ones at the college wouldn't accept ‘puppeteered by psychopaths’ as an excuse for their four year absence), Angus goes to school like normal and is actually able to hang out with his friends like a normal kid now that their several calamities have tied themselves up neatly, and Taako runs LuLu’s (which is the name the place shall remain, and Lup should have thought about that before she went and got herself kidnapped, shouldn’t she?).

Of course, just when the illusion of normalcy starts to hit, it all goes to shit.

Taako’s closing up, Angus sitting at a booth doing homework. Lup and Barry are up at the apartment, and to be honest Taako has no idea where anyone else is because while they’re all close they only text each other updates on their location 80% of the time.

Okay, to be honest right now it’s more like 90% of the time because the events of the last few what-feels-like-millenia has left everyone a little on edge and a lot needy, but the point still stands that right now, everyone not legally related to Taako could be in Timbuktu for all he knows.

One additional person whose location he knows? The grim fucking reaper’s, because the asshole is currently chilling in his kitchen acting like _that’s_ a totally normal place for him to be.

“Did I have a sudden fatal coronary heart attack and not notice, my man?” Taako asks, teeth gritted as he stops short, surveying the flesh-and-bone-but-als

“No, no need to worry about anything like that.” the man chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.

Was it wrong to think the grim reaper was kinda hot? Now that they’d beat him at his own game, Taako could kinda appreciate what the man was bringing to the table, both look and dress wise.

Taako mentally shakes his head - find out what the hell the man is doing here first, drool over him second.

“Um, I actually wanted to discuss our deal with you all - could you gather everyone?”

Oh fuck no. Taking it all back. Taako turns the whisk in his hand into a kind of dinky ren fair-esque sword. “Like that’s fucking happening. We had a deal, asshole, and if you want to renege on it we’re going to have a problem. You might be the grim reaper but we’ve got a _lot_ of people on our side.”

Angus, hearing his outburst, peaks his head over the counter. Taako tries his best to subtly motion the boy to leave, and boy genius that he is, he silently ducks out of the restaurant.

Gotta love that kid.

“No, no, no issue!” the guy says, holding his hands up, palms out. “It’s just, well. I’m kind of in hot water with my mom- um, my boss? And so I wanted to offer all of the undead members of your team a deal that is hopefully beneficial for all of us. No soul reaping involved. Oh! My name’s Kravitz.” He extends a hand. Taako almost laughs at the fact that he has an honest to god skull ring on one of his fingers - like, aesthetically dope, but in context kinda lame.

“Congrats. Listen dude. I don’t care if your boss - your mom? Has an issue. We made a deal, we won, and you need to leave.”

“I promise I’m being honest here - the deal really will be beneficial for your friends, and they don’t have to take it if they don’t want to. I just need to try and fix my mistake.”

“So you don’t get grounded?” Taako says, a bit more nasty and playground-bully than he means to be.

Kravitz sighs. “Yes, my mom is the goddess of death and also my boss, back off.”

“ _Me_ back off. Right. Well, my man, let me send off a text to the troops asking them to come down, and you can regale me with the story of your mom, ‘cause _goddess of death_ sounds like a pretty badass title.” Taako opens his phone as he speaks, opens a groupchat with everyone, and sends off a series of texts.

_**Grim reaper back. Not mad but wants to talk.  
Doesnt seem to kno where anyone is so u guys bounce and ill distract him and well meet up later   
DO NOT COME HERE I FUCKING MEAN IT   
find angus first tho i told him to leave dont kno where he went** _

“Really? I mean, sure, if you want. Doesn’t hurt to fill the time.” 

“Yes, really.” Taako says, and then he, as nonchalantly as he can manage, gets back to making the dough he’d been making before - might as well also get that done while he was taking up the guys time.

“It’s a long story.”

“Well duh. Explaining the concept of a death goddess herself seems pretty time consuming. But guess what! Everyone is pretty scattered at the moment, so it turns out we have time.” Taako shrugs. “And if we don’t get through it all before they get here, we can just meet up after. I do want to know, and considering you aren’t here to fucking _murder_ my family…”

“Right! I’m not. Here to murder anyone. Okay, well, long story short,” Kravtiz’s eyes looked a little embarrassed. “I died when I was ten, and when another of her reaper’s brought me back, the Raven Queen - that’s my mothers’ name - she felt bad for me. I was sacrificed? In a necromantic ritual? That was done by this cult that ‘worshipped’ her - airquotes because she fucking _hates_ them and always has - so she felt responsible for my death, and she offered to restore my life if I would serve as her reaper when I was an adult, which is, yanno, now. And then she and her wife also basically adopted and raised me. And also told me I didn’t really have to be a reaper, and when I said I would insisted I only do it part time so I could have another job, and sent me to school… She’s a nice person. Goddess. Whatever.”

“So you and she are hypocrites.” Taako raises an eyebrow. “You’re fine with your mom bringing you back to life but not with other people doing the same thing.”

“It was a one time thing. Mom has never brought anyone else back in her millenia of existence. Your friend has brought back three people in his three decades of life.” Kravitz winces. “Look, I understand how this all looks, I do. I’m really sorry. I know none of you asked for this. But you have to understand that we can’t just let people play with lives willy-nilly. I don’t think you all are trying to do anything bad, but there are people out there who are, and we can’t let you get to that point.”

“I get it.” Taako shrugs. “Lost your accent a bit at the end, didn’t you?”

“Oh, fuck, you noticed?” Kravitz says, looking embarrassed. “I just, I started doing when I started reaping and it seemed like a way to differentiate between my lives? I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“Yeah, but also kind of...cute?” Taako shrugged, turning away so he wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that he just said that. “You said you have another job?”

“Oh yeah. I’m a conductor in the city, actually.”

“Nice. Train or orchestra?”

Kravitz laughs. “Orchestra.”

“Nice! My sister and Barry both played in orchestra’s for a bit.”

“Well, maybe that’ll give us something other than business to discuss when they arrive. Speaking of…”

“Oh yeah, they all went out to a science museum a few towns over - they’re nerds, so that’s their idea of a date - so they’ve got a bit of driving to do to get back here. Sorry, should have warned you it might take a while.” Taako shrugs, 

“No problem.” Kravitz shrugs, leaning against the counter. “Just, um, this is kind of awkward - are you flirting with me?”

To save himself the embarrassment of...whatever's happening, Taako answers, “You have to ask?”

“I don't get flirted with often.”

“Dude, you’re hot, and you just admitted you don’t live solely in the realm of the dead with your mom, or whatever, so I highly doubt that.”

“Fine, well, I’m not good at reading this sort of thing. Are you?”

Taako winces. “Kinda?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re actually pretty nice, and you’re definitely gorgeous, but you also wanted to reap my family's souls and would have if Magnus hadn’t won the card game, so…”

“No, then?”

“Kinda.” Taako shrugs. “I mean, you are hot. What’s the harm.”

“You’ve brought up that I’m supposedly here to steal your family's souls like, five times.” Kravitz smiles.

“Supposedly?” Taako answers, setting down the bowl he’s been working with. “You’re really hanging onto this whole ‘I come in peace’ schtick, huh?”

“ _Take me to your leader_.” Kravitz intones in his cockney accent, before laughing and switching back to normal. “But no, it’s not a schtick. I really come with no ill will - you guys won, fair and square. I want to ask you guys to strike a new deal, partially to save my own ass, but also because I genuinely think it will help your friends out.”

“Right.” Taako is actually starting to feel guilty about it all, but je doesn’t really have time for too much regret, because his fucking family chooses this as the moment to ruin his work by busting into the shop, guns blazing - not literally, because none of them own guns, but not really figuratively either.

“I’m sorry, sir!” Angus says - which, okay, he only calls any of them ‘sir’ when he feels really bad about something, so Taako isn’t going to be able to be _that_ mad, “But we weren’t going to just leave with the grim reaper, even if he’s nice now?”

“I think he, like, actually is nice now.”

“What do you mean by sorry?” Kravitz asks.

“I may or may not have been stalling you for time so they could escape. But I was going to text them and tell them you seemed genuine!”

“I…” Kravitz sighs, “yeah, that makes sense. Anyway! If you’d hear me out, I have a legitimate deal for the three of you-” he gestures to Julia, Lup, and Barry “that I feel would be both beneficial to both you and the Raven Queen.”

No one speaks for a beat, and then Angus pipes up, “Where’s your accent, sir?”

“It, my friends, is _fake_.” Taako says while Kravitz groans.

“Fun!” Lup says with full sincerity, because she’s a nerd.

“I’ll hear you out.” Julia interrupts the silence that has stretched for a few seconds longer than a normal conversational pause. “You’ve been pretty up front with us so far, so as long as you swear we don’t have to accept anything, I don’t see it hurting us to listen to what you have to offer.”

“Your previous deal is one hundred percent valid and binding,” Kravitz reassures, “this is more like...not even an add-on, it’s like a new deal?” He looks around LuLu’s cramped kitchen. “Do you guys want to go sit down so I can explain it all to you?”

They all shrug and move out to the booth they’d occupied with the same reaper just a short time ago.

“Right, so.” Kravitz starts, “Essentially, what I have for you three is a job offer. Reapers who work for the Raven Queen are - well, dead, but she gives you new life. So you guys would no longer be raised from the dead, but reborn? And it’s a pretty standard job - I mean, you don’t clock in and out or anything, but she’ll give you souls to reap every now and then and as long as perform the task it’s fine. It doesn’t, like, pay, or anything? Which I know might be a bit of a problem, but honestly it’s like a super part time gig and the perks are the whole, no-longer-dead thing!”

“And she’s offering this to all three of us?” Julia asks.

“Yes. The Raven Queen likes to have a lot of reapers, so that the one’s she has don’t have to take on too much - the only real perk she can give is the renewed life, so she wants to make sure you can actually have one. Several of our other reapers have retired recently - they got to an age where they no longer wished to be alive, when most of their friends were dead, and so they accepted death.”

“What sort of souls do you track down?” Barry asks.

“Typically its situations like yours, only with true necromancy - I don’t know if you know this, Magnus, but your magic seems to almost fully renew life to the people you pull from - you all have hearts that beat and blood that pumps and synapses that fire; for all intents and purposes you’re alive. True necromancy can’t do that - the souls don’t bond correctly to the bodies, and the bodies still rot and die again if they aren’t properly preserved - are you taking notes?” 

The last part of this statement is directed at Barry, who sure enough has the notes app open on his phone, writing down everything Kravitz says on necromancy. (Angus is also taking notes, but it's on a pad of paper and he’s doing it much more surreptitiously - Taako can only notice because he knows his kid so well.)

“Just want to be prepared for if I take the job!” Barry says with a nervous, endearing grin. Lup gives him a thumbs up and a whispered ‘good job dodging that one, babe’ the second Kravitz turns back to Magnus. Taako snorts.

“Anyway, like I was saying, your magic is a little different, which is why it’s also a little harder to keep tabs on. We also go after souls that have unfinished business, who are trying to stick around on this plane to see if their business will ever be solved - like at Glamour Springs.” Kravitz turns to Taako, and Taako feels the color drain out of his face at the mention of the name. “There were many souls still stuck there, hoping their deaths would actually be solved. Actually, that’s when Magnus first came onto our radar.”

“Woof, good to know that.” Taako grimaces, and Magnus punched him in the shoulder.

“Dude, I would be on everyone's radar before I would take back solving that case.” Magnus frowns at Taako, and Taako smiles back weakly. 

“Kravitz.” Julia says, voice serious. “What do you mean when you say we’ll regain our lives? If what Magnus has done for us is basically already a life? What do we gain?”

“Basically, three major things. The first is, well; none of you will age. Magnus’s magic perfectly preserves your bodies at the age they are now. The second is attached to that; I don’t know if you’ve been back here long enough to notice, but the Raven Queen is fairly certain your bodies won’t be able to heal past the point that allows you to still, well, be alive.” Taako sees Lup reach a hand up to her chest, where he knows the stab wound from Lydia and Edwards knife is still at, closed to the point where it no longer bleeds but still raw and unhealed despite the time that had passed since Magnus brought them back. “If you work for the Raven Queen you’ll be fully restored to an alive being, no difference from how you were before you died.”

“No difference.” Julia says, her face brightening. “So we could, Magnus and all of us, touch?”

“You’d no longer run the risk of touching Magnus and dying, yes.”

The words are barely out of Kravitz’ mouth before Julia speaks. “When can I start?”

Kravitz raises his eyebrows, and pulls three slips of paper out of thin air. “I - once you sign this contract.” He passes it along to her, and Taako watches as she scans he short and to-the-point document, before using the pen (with a black feather attached; gotta stay true to the aesthetic) Kravitz hands her to sign the line at the bottom.

She glows briefly, and when the light is gone she turns to Kravitz. “I’m - fully in this?”

“Welcome to the Raven Queen’s employ.” Kravitz says with a smile, and Julia launches herself across the table to bring Magnus into a tight hug. They both have tears running down their cheeks, and Julia turns from whispering something into Magnus’ ear to kiss him square on the mouth.

“Well, I can’t have Taako someday being the older twin.” Lup says, hands out for the paper. “And to be honest, I’m assuming Barry would have said yes without any perks.”

“I mean, babe, _obviously_.” Barry says, and he and Lup sign their names.

“Well, that’s it then.” Kravitz says, as the glow fades from Lup and Barry. “If you’d like, we can schedule a time I can come pick you all up and bring you to the Raven Queen’s domain for an introduction and some training on your new powers.”

“Sounds good.” Julia smiles, still draped across the table. “I for one don’t have a job right now; whole ‘family business going up in smokes’ thing has left me pretty free, so whenever you want works.”

“I’ll give you some time to adjust; there really isn’t much going on in the world of soul reaping right now. What about Monday morning?”

“Works for me.” Lup says, and looks to Barry who nods in agreement. “We’re hoping to get, like, non-reaper jobs though, so once we do we’ll have to figure that out.”

“It’s no problem; I was telling Taako earlier, but my day job is working as a conductor at the orchestra here in town. The Raven Queen is really good about scheduling around everyday stuff.”

“Sounds good.” Barry says, and the others nod along.

“Well then, if we’re all done here, I should probably be leaving.” Kravitz stands up, and starts to head towards the door - to be honest, Taako’s surprised he hasn’t just poofed away like he did in the past.

Taako waffles for a second on if he should follow or not, but finally decides that if he doesn’t shoot his shot now he probably never will.

“Wait up. Taako says, and then he walks up to Kravitz and pulls him out of LuLu’s into the sidewalk. He can see his family peering out of the window at the booth they’re sitting at.

“Since we’re going to be seeing each other a lot more now, I thought maybe we could...continue the conversation we were having before the bozos arrived.”

“Oh! I, I thought you were just like, distracting me?”

“I can distract and flirt at the same time, my man. So if you want, I could give you my number…”

“Yes! Sure! Definitely!” Kravitz stumbles, and pulls out his phone, unlocks his phone, and hands it over to Taako, who makes quick work of entering his number.

“Right. Well, text me!” Taako says, and waves goodbye as he turns back into LuLu’s.

“TAAKO!” Lup shrieks. “Did you just give the grim reaper your number???”

“Technically you, Uncle Barry, and Julia are grim reapers now too.” Angus points out, and Taako gives him a high five.

“Exactly. Listen to the kid, he’s smarter than everyone in this room.”

“Well, since we’re all already here, how about some dinner?” Merle asks, elbowing Taako, who sighs.

“One day I’m going to make you pay your fucking tab, and then you’ll be sorry. Come on Lup, let's go make these idiots dinner.”

Lup gasps. “I can’t believe you’d call my precious, genius nephew an idiot!”

“Dad says I’m excluded from any grouping he makes if Merle and Magnus are a part of the grouping.” Angus calls to Lup as she follows Taako into his kitchen.

Magnus wraps his arm around Julia’s shoulders, and they talk about the bench design they’d been asked to fill a few days ago. Barry starts talking to Angus about the necromancy Kravtiz had been talking about. Merle calls into the kitchen to let them know to make enough for Mavis and Mookie, and then leaves to go get them. Lup pulls out a frying pan and starts cooking like she’s known this kitchen for years, and Taako takes a quick second to enjoy it all before joining her.

.

.

.

_At that moment . . . events occurred that are not, were not, and should never be considered an ending. For endings, as it is known, are where we begin._


End file.
